V 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


^K^^. 


Walter  Savage  Landor 


A  CRITICAL  STUDY 


EDWARD  WATERMAN  EVANS,  JR. 

UNIVERSITY    FELLOW,    PRINCETON 


G.  T.   PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

27  West  Twenty-third  St.  24  Bedford  St.,  Strand 

£^e  |inickcrboc!ur  J)rrss 
1892 


COPYRIGHT,    1892 

BY 

KltWARD   WATERMAN    EVANS,    JR. 


Printed  and  Bound  by 

Ube  Ikntcfccrbochcr  lprcss,  IRew  Ji)ork 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 


JAMES  ORMSBEE  MURRAY,  LL.D. 

EXEMPLAR 

OF  THE   PERSUASIVENESS   AND    DIGNITY   OF   CULTURE 

THIS    BOOK   IS    DEDICATED 


152422G 


CONTENTS. 


Preface  .... 

Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters 
Landor's  Poetry  . 
Landor's  Prose  Writings    . 
Landor's  Place  in  Literature 
Appendix        .... 


.       Vll 

I 

.     61 

.   119 

.   181 

.   189 

PREFACE. 


Only  those  books  endure  as  living 
presences,  and  not  as  mere  mortuary- 
tablets,  wherein  there  is  a  vital  coa- 
lescence of  sense  and  thought,  of  na- 
ture and  spirit.  Other  volumes  may- 
possess  a  relative  longevity,  as  links 
in  a  historical  development,  or  as 
affording  suggestive  material  which 
shall  subsequently  be  transmuted 
into  artistic  form  ;  but  their  mortality 
is  inevitable.  Scientific  knowledge, 
with  its  classification  of  phenomena 
and  its  discovery  of  their  necessary 
co-existences  and  sequences  in  time 
and  space,  is  ever  expanding.  Hence 
the  latest  book  in  science  is  usually 
the  best.     It  has  assimilated,  and  re- 


Vll 


viii  Preface. 

produced  in  fuller  growth,  all  pre- 
vious works  pertaining  to  its  depart- 
ment. Ideas,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  are  formed  in  the  crucible  of 
art — ideas  that  suffuse  the  appear- 
ances of  nature  with  the  free  soul  of 
man — have  an  absolute  value.  And 
the  book  embodying  them  is  a  spir- 
itual organism,  whose  end  is  focused 
in  itself,  in  its  own  delightful,  imagi- 
native marriage  of  idea  and  expres- 
sion. The  work  of  art  grows  not.  It 
is  a  "  wavering  apparition  "  fixed  "  in 
its  place  with  thoughts  that  stand 
forever." 

Now  the  productions  of  Walter 
Savage  Landor  are  eminently  artis- 
tic. Hence,  as  those  who  admire 
him  keep  noting  with  approval  the 
recent  reprints  of  his  several  works, 
and  the  eulogistic  references  at  pres- 
ent so  often  made  to  this  master  of 
English  ;  they  cannot  withhold  their 
belief   in  his  much-doubted   predic- 


Preface.  ix 

tion,  that  he,  as  an  author,  would 
dine  late  surrounded  by  a  choice 
company  of  kindred  spirits — they 
cannot  withhold  their  belief  that 
he  belongs  among  the  immortals. 
Though  his  lettered  contemporaries 
from  Southey  to  Swinburne  were 
almost  unanimous  in  acknowledging 
the  distinction  and  charm  of  Lan- 
dor's  writings,  his  audience,  at  least 
until  recently,  has  been  by  no  means 
proportionate  to  his  commanding 
worth  as  a  literary  artist. 

While  there  have  appeared  two 
biographies  of  Landor,  a  cumber- 
some one  by  John  Forster,  his  liter- 
ary executor,  and  a  judicious  one 
by  Mr.  Colvin  in  the  English  Men 
of  Letters  series,  no  critique,  at  once 
adequately  exclusive  and  inclusive, 
has  been  written  in  the  effort  to 
determine  Landor's  place  and  func- 
tion in  literature.  Unlike  a  biog- 
raphy, such  a  critique   would    have 


x  Preface. 

to  be  exclusive,  passing  over  all  de- 
tails of  outward  history  not  insep- 
arably linked  with  the  author's 
inner  life  and  writings;  and  it  would 
have  to  be  inclusive,  tracing  with 
more  coherence  than  could  well  be 
done  in  a  biography  the  relation  of 
the  author's  works  to  his  age  and  to 
his  personality,  and  then  bringing 
the  canons  of  criticism  to  bear  con- 
cretely upon  his  several  contribu- 
tions in  poetry  or  prose.  This  has 
been  the  method  pursued,  however 
tentatively,  in  the  following  critical 
study. 

In  treating  of  Landor's  attitude 
toward  the  scientific,  philosophical, 
and  religious  conceptions  of  the 
period,  as  also  toward  criticism  and 
politics,  it  was  found  hard  to  charac- 
terize him  other  than  negatively. 
His  positive  qualities,  however,  hav- 
ing thus  been  provided  with  a  nega- 
tive background,  can,  it  is  hoped,  be 


Preface.  xi 

thereupon    brought    out    in    clearer 
relief. 

Though  the  immediate  purpose  in 
writing  this  critique,  and  also  the 
Landorian  idyl  contained  in  the  Ap- 
pendix, was  to  compete  for  college 
prizes, — one  in  criticism,  the  other 
in  poetry, — the  aspirations  of  the 
writer  continued  to  go  out  toward  a 
wider  audience.  And  though  the 
actual  composition  was  undertaken 
and  completed  amidst  the  press  and 
distraction  of  undergraduate  duties, 
these  essays  are  the  record  of  a 
previous  study  of  Landor's  works, 
at  once  careful,  prolonged,  and 
enthusiastic. 

Princeton  College, 

January  13,  1892. 


I. 

LANDOR  AS  A  MAN  OF  LETTERS 


I. 

LANDOR  AS  A  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

A  UNIVERSAL  library  has  three 
alcoves.  The  first  contains  the  reli- 
gious books,  those  which  relate  man 
to  Deity.  The  deepest  question  in 
the  human  soul  is  the  why  of  its  ex- 
istence ;  and  the  only  answer  to  this 
riddle  of  the  sphinx  is  God.  More- 
over, while  the  clear-minded  Greek 
may  conceive  of  Divinity  as  pure 
intelligence  unperturbed  by  emotion, 
a  passionless  force  in  itself  unmoral, 
because  in  it  duty  and  inclination 
are  one  ;  while  the  vehement  Hebrew 
may  picture  Jehovah  as  frowning  in 
righteous  anger  at  the  sins  of  his 
people, — both    Oriental     and    Occi- 

3 


4         Walter  Savage  Landor. 

dental  alike  must  ever  be  feeling  after 
the  guardian  hand  of  God  :  and  those 
seers,  who  have  caught  a  glimpse  of 
his  trailing  garments,  are  always  to 
be  regarded  as  the  rarest  benefactors 
of  mankind.  Nor  dare  we  suppose 
that  the  Deity  has  revealed  himself 
once  for  all  far  back  in  the  immuta- 
ble past,  that  long  since  the  book 
of  God's  plan  has  been  sealed.  In 
these  modern  times,  Fichte  and 
Schelling,  Carlyle  and  Emerson, 
Wordsworth  and  Browning,  these 
and  many  more  have  sought  to  un- 
cover the  secret  things  of  God.  The 
second  alcove  is  stored  with  those 
books  which  unite  the  mind  of  man 
with  outward  nature.  Our  ideal  of 
the  good  is  only  satisfied  by  resting 
in  the  perfection  of  the  Godhead  ; 
in  the  same  way  a  type  of  the  true 
and  fair  is,  upon  occasion,  best  un- 
veiled beneath  the  shows  of  nature  ; 
and  the  Infinite  Reason  that  gleams 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.    5 

from  moonlit  waters,  or  looks  down 
upon  us  from  the  silent  stars,  has 
power  to  rouse  our  deepest,  most 
impersonal  emotions,  to  soothe  our 
world-weariness,  and  to  attune  our 
souls  to  the  Soul  whose  manifestation 
is  nature.  The  third  alcove  is  laden 
with  the  humanistic  books,  the  vol- 
umes which  give  the  biography  of 
man,  his  outer  and  his  inner  expe- 
rience. 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  more  uni- 
versal categories  by  which  to  deter- 
mine the  genus  of  an  author  than 
these.  And  as  criticism  too  often 
confines  itself  to  details  and  tech- 
nique, thus  failing  to  give  an  ade- 
quate conception  even  of  these, 
because  of  its  circumscribed  point  of 
view,  it  is  well  to  recognize  at  the 
beginning  the  limitations  of  our 
author,  and  frankly  to  acknowledge 
that  Walter  Savage  Landor  saw  but 
rarely  the  under  and  spiritual  side  of 


6         Walter  Savage  Landor. 

nature,  and  that  at  no  time  could 
he  be  called  a  man  of  God,  having 
no  final  word  of  the  Lord  to  utter. 
And  while  these  three  classes  of 
books  are  not  always  mutually  ex- 
clusive, but  resemble  water  circles, 
each  of  which  ripples  into  the  other, 
yet,  like  such  circles,  each  class  re- 
tains a  measure  of  its  own  identity. 
Thus,  though  Wordsworth  was  men- 
tioned as  an  interpreter  of  "  the 
ways  of  God  to  men,"  he  stands  pre- 
eminently as  the  poet  of  nature. 
Precisely  so  is  Landor,  above  all, 
the  humanist.  Masculine  strength 
and  maidenly  tenderness,  all  the 
variations  of  noble  and  attractive 
character,  excited  in  him  deep  inter- 
est ;  and  his  interest  was  gauged 
by  his  insight.  Landor's  very  defi- 
ciency as  an  abstract  thinker,  his 
inability  to  forge  a  chain  of  dialectic, 
left  his  imagination  the  more  un- 
dimmed,  and  on  the  alert  to  conjure 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters,    y 

up  the  phantoms  of  history  and 
make  them  live  again.  And  in  his 
literary  work,  therefore,  ideas  con- 
nected with  nature  or  God  are  mere 
scenic  effects,  so  to  speak,  having  no 
absorbing  worth  in  themselves,  while 
Landor's  claim  to  an  artistic  repre- 
sentation of  life  is  restricted  to  the 
reflective  exhibition  of  certain  types 
of  character. 

Contrary  to  the  habit  of  the  hu- 
manists, who  portray  the  manners 
and  intellectual  and  moral  culture 
distinctive  of  their  day,  Landor  was 
in  no  respect  an  embodiment  of  the 
spirit  of  his  time.  Can  we  imagine 
what  would  have  been  the  develop- 
ment of  Oliver  Goldsmith's  genius 
apart  from  its  eighteenth-century 
environment?  At  mention  of  the 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  or  She  Stoops 
to  Conquer,  the  prudery  and  affec- 
tation of  the  women,  the  animality 
of   the  men,   even   the  exaggerated 


8        Walter  Savage  Landor. 

style  of  dressing, — all  the  details  of 
"  our  age  of  prose  and  reason,"    do 
they  not  come  to  mind  at  once  ?  But 
Shakspeare,  who  penetrated  the  per- 
sonality of  Caesar  or  Brutus,  of  Lear 
or  Macbeth,  as  profoundly  as  he  did 
that  of  a  contemporary,  who  so  un- 
derstood   the    controlling    forces   of 
human  nature,  as  that  their  manifes- 
tation   in    any  particular    age    and 
person  became  an  open  secret  to  him 
— even  Shakspeare  is  far  more  the 
mere  Elizabethan  writer  than  is  Lan- 
dor   the   mere    Victorian.      Recent 
peculiar  phases  of  English  life  were 
much  better    known   to   Dickens  or 
Anthony  Trollope  than   to  Landor. 
The  power  of  the  latter  consists,  not 
in  his  grasp  upon   the  transient  as- 
pects   of     character,    those     aspects 
which    a   shifting   environment  will 
transform,  but  upon  the  simpler  and 
more  ultimate  passions  of  the  human 
heart.    Landor's  work  does  not  show 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters,    g 

the  careful  scientific  scrutiny  of  local 
types  that  is  manifest  on  almost 
every  page  of  Thackeray  or  George 
Eliot.  The  intense  psychologic  anal- 
ysis of  a  George  Eliot  is  beyond  Lan- 
dor's  range.  His  psychology  is  more 
like  that  of  Sophocles  or  Cicero.  His 
representations  are  statuesque  rather 
than  pictorial. 

If  Landor  does  not  exhibit  his  men 
and  women  after  the  pattern  of  the 
times,  neither  does  he  array  himself 
for  or  against  what  may  be  regarded 
as  the  tendencies  of  his  age.  About 
the  great  scientific  movement — which 
has,  however,  only  recently  given 
us  its  philosophic  fruitage  in  the 
works  of  Herbert  Spencer — Landor 
remained  profoundly  unconcerned. 
Neither  Forster's  Life  nor  any  of 
Landor's  writings  gives  us  the  im- 
pression that  scientific  questions 
possessed  his  attention  in  the  least. 
And  indeed,    Forster,  quoting  from 


io      Walter  Savage  Land  or. 

Seymour  Kirkup,  says,  that  in  con- 
versational encounters  with  Francis 
Hare,  Landor  avoided  the  sciences. 
And  Landor  himself,  in  his  published 
letter  to  Emerson,  correcting  an  ap- 
parent misconception,  declares  that 
he  does  not  despise  entomology,  but 
is  only  ignorant  of  it ;  as,  indeed,  he 
is  of  almost  all  science  ;  and  while  he 
loves  flowers  and  plants,  he  knows 
less  about  them  than  is  known  by 
a  beetle  or  butterfly.  We  do  not  of 
course  fall  into  the  anachronism  of 
expecting  Landor,  who  died  in  1864, 
to  be  affected  by  the  Darwinian  the- 
ory, since  the  Origin  of  Species  was 
not  published  till  1859  >  but  we  should 
have  expected  a  man  of  his  positive 
temper  to  have  been  stirred  to  indig- 
nant protest  against  the  over-estima- 
tion of  material  comforts,  of  the 
mechanical  improvements  which  sci- 
ence has  given  us,  and  the  under-es- 
timation  of  the  needs  of  the  spirit. 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.   1 1 

Perhaps  Landor's  somewhat  isolated 
life  in  Italy  and  Bath  hindered  him 
from  perceiving  how  the  classicism 
which  he  so  cherished  was  threatened 
by  the  incursion  of  Professor  Huxley 
and  the  other  dragoons  of  natural 
science  and  "  the  practical."  It  is  not 
to  Landor,  but  to  Ruskin  or  Matthew 
Arnold,  that  we  must  go  for  a  defence 
of  the  humanism  which  alone  can 
satisfy  "  our  sense  for  beauty"  and 
"  our  sense  for  conduct." 

It  is  possible  to  inquire  too  curi- 
ously into  psychical  phenomena  ;  yet 
we  venture  the  supposition  that  the 
sentiment  of  wonder,  which  awakens 
scientific  aptitude,  never  existed  in 
large  measure  in  Landor's  mental 
make-up.  Wonder  is  the  expression 
of  a  want,  and  is  ever  asking  the  why 
of  things.  It  is  the  instinct  for 
causes.  Now,  Landor's  genius,  as 
we  hope  to  show  more  fully  later,  is 
essentially     static,    rather   than   dy- 


1 2      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

namic.  His  style  is  not  progressive 
and  cumulative.  He  has  slight 
ability  for  story-telling  or  for  elabo- 
rate argument.  Landor's  power 
comes  not  from  wonder,  but  from 
admiration,  which  rests  upon  abeauti- 
ful  form,  contented,  and  seeks  no 
farther.  We  are  not  much  surprised, 
therefore,  when  we  find  him  taking 
no  part  in  scientific  discussion  ;  since 
his  genius  is  predominantly  aesthetic 
and  imaginative. 

Nor  can  Landor  be  said  to  have 
assumed  the  attitude  of  partisan  in 
the  heated  controversy  between  the 
empiricist  and  the  intuitionalist, — a 
controversy  which,  avowed  or  un- 
avowed,  comprehends  so  much  of 
the  higher  literature  of  the  century. 
Who  has  been  more  strident  in  his 
vociferations  against  "  the  philoso- 
phy of  dirt,"  and  who  has  more  man- 
fully proclaimed  Duty  to  be  "  the 
stern  daughter  of  the  voice  of  God," 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.    13 

than  Thomas  Carlyle  !  Landor,  on 
the  other  hand,  in  so  far  as  he  for- 
mulated his  ideas,  gravitated  towards 
the  utilitarian  side.  "  This  is  phi- 
losophy, to  make  remote  things  tan- 
gible, common  things  extensively 
useful,  useful  things  extensively  com- 
mon, and  to  leave  the  least  necessary 
for  the  last.  .  .  .  Truth  is  not 
reasonably  the  main  and  ultimate 
object  of  philosophy ;  philosophy 
should  seek  truth  merely  as  the  means 
of  acquiring  and  propagating  happi- 
ness." In  a  letter  to  Southey,  he 
says:  "To  increase  the  sum  of 
happiness  and  to  diminish  the  sum 
of  misery,  is  the  only  right  aim  both 
of  reason  and  of  religion."  Although 
Landor  desired  to  walk  with  Epi- 
curus on  the  right  hand,  and  Epic- 
tetus  on  the  left,  he  practically  made 
life's  journey  with  only  an  indulgent 
Epicurus ;  for  he  never  was  able, 
and    indeed    he    never   made    much 


1 4      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

serious  effort,  to  control  the  impulse 
of  the  moment.  Landor's  philo- 
sophic ideal,  therefore,  in  the  matter 
of  conduct,  does  not  run  parallel  with 
the  modern  one,  as  embodied  in  Kant 
or  Fichte.  Kant's  ideal  is  duty  done 
in  the  presence  of  inward  hindrances, 
of  opposing  impulses ;  Landor's  ideal 
is  characteristically  Greek.  Denying 
the  need  of  conflict  between  man's 
lower  and  his  higher  nature,  it  insists 
upon  the  deep-rooted  harmony  of 
duty  and  desire,  and  practically  yields 
the  reins  to  inclination.  Nowhere  in 
literature  is  a  refined  type  of  Epicu- 
reanism more  persuasively  set  forth 
than  in  the  dialogue  between  Epi- 
curus, Leontion,  and  Ternissa.  The 
Greek  conception  of  the  harmonious 
play  of  soul  and  body,  of  mental  and 
material  forces,  is  here  seen  in  its 
irresistible  charm.  No  restless  striv- 
ing to  impress  a  sense  of  our  capa- 
bilities upon   others,  no  amount  of 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.   1 5 

self-exhibition,  can  stand  in  place  of 
that  ideal  which  is  characterized  by 
the  quiet  efflorescence  of  what  is 
noblest,  purest,  and  best  in  each  of 
us.  This,  in  its  highest  terms,  is 
Landor's  theory  of  life.  Indeed,  if 
he  had  had  a  stronger  hold  upon  in- 
tuitive truths,  his  standpoint  might 
have  approached  very  near  to  that  of 
the  Graeco-Puritan  Emerson  ;  and 
one  does  not  wonder  that  the  latter 
had  studied  with  delight  the  dia- 
logues of  Landor  before  his  memo- 
rable visit  to  the  Villa  Gherardescha, 
which  is  recorded  in  the  English 
Traits. 

Nor  does  Landor  express  the 
other  distinctive  feature  of  his  time 
— its  scepticism.  His  was  not  "the 
spirit  that  denies."  To  parade  a 
shallow  agnosticism  would  have  met 
Landor's  contemptuous  disapproval. 
And  surely,  if  Professor  Huxley  is 
speaking    with    accuracy   when    he 


1 6      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

contends  that  agnosticism  is  merely 
a  method  and  not  a  confession  of 
faith,  or  rather  of  doubt,  he  need 
give  himself  no  airs  for  having 
brought  such  a  method  to  light,  for 
his  mental  attitude  is  nothing  other 
than  the  characteristic  one  of  every 
modern  investigator.  It  is  merely 
the  de  omnibus  dubito  of  Descartes, 
the  basal  idea  of  modern  thinking. 
It,  however,  is  only  a  callow  scepti- 
cism that  would  require  all  convic- 
tion to  be  grounded  upon  logic, 
would  apotheosize  a  part  of  man's 
soul,  his  reasoning  faculty — not  recog- 
nizing him  as  a  spiritual  unit,  with 
the  power,  among  others,  of  intui- 
tive belief.  Landor,  however,  did 
not  take  this  negative  position,  but 
was  fundamentally  a  Comtean  in 
religious  matters.  The  speculative 
side  of  Christianity  he  placed  no 
emphasis  upon  ;  and  the  decline  of 
faith  could  have  excited  in  him  no 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.   1 7 

such  lyrical  laments  as  it  did  in  Mat- 
thew Arnold.  Landor  approached 
religion  just  as  he  approached  all 
sides  of  life,  from  the  individualistic 
standpoint.  He  never  wearies  in 
his  dialogues  of  emphasizing  the 
antithesis  between  the  morality  of 
states  or  sects  and  the  sayings  of 
Christ.  And  while  his  emotions  did 
not  penetrate  the  divine  meaning  of 
humility  and  self-renunciation,  and 
his  experience  was  foreign  to  such 
influences,  he  never,  on  the  other 
hand,  made  the  mistake  of  suppos- 
ing that  the  strength  of  Christianity 
lay  in  a  Hellenic  Judaism,  which 
sees  a  dogmatic  content  in  the  sim- 
plest moral  precept  of  our  Lord. 
The  dialogues  between  Middleton 
and  Magliabecchi,  Timotheus  and 
Lucian,  Melancthon  and  Calvin, 
though  not  taking  fairly  into  ac- 
count the  impossibility  of  divorcing 
practice     from    its    source — theory, 


1 8      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

show,  nevertheless,  Landor's  firm 
grasp  upon  this  idea,  that  Christ- 
ianity, as  he  makes  Romilly  say  in 
another  dialogue,  "  lies  not  in  be- 
lief, but  in  action."  And  Melanc- 
thon  fitly  closes  his  discussion  with 
Calvin  by  declaring  that  "  there 
is  nothing  on  earth  divine  besides 
humanity." 

One  is  tempted  to  draw  an  anal- 
ogy here  between  Landor  and 
Goethe.  German  was  the  only  world 
literature  that  always  remained  a 
closed  door  to  him.  And  when  we 
recall  the  abstractness  of  thought, 
the  pomposity  of  style,  the  mystical 
romanticism  of  our  Teutonic  neigh- 
bors, we  feel  that  Landor,  the  classi- 
cist, missed  less  by  his  inability  to 
read  this  language  than  most  other 
men  of  as  large  mental  calibre. 
After  an  inadequate  acquaintance 
with  Goethe,  Landor,  in  his  usual 
categorical  fashion,  pronounced  him- 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  1 9 

self  disgusted  with  "  the  corrugated 
spicery  of  metaphysics,"  which  he 
was  pleased  to  find  in  the  writings 
of  the  great  German.  Nevertheless, 
these  two  men  had  points  in  com- 
mon. One  side  of  Goethe's  nature 
was  Greek,  the  other  side  intensely 
modern.  Landor  in  one  aspect  re- 
sembled the  Greek,  in  the  other  the 
Roman.  They  met,  therefore,  on 
common  Hellenic  ground.  Goethe 
looked  at  things  from  the  critic's 
standpoint.  He  lightly  disengaged 
himself  from  the  object,  and  then 
with  perfect  self-poise  studied  its 
effectiveness.  Landor,  for  all  his 
Hellenism,  could  rarely  become  so 
disinterested  ;  the  active  ethical  im- 
pulse was  ever  and  again  pulling  at 
his  heart-strings.  It  is  not,  however, 
our  purpose  to  draw  out  these  lines 
of  community  or  difference,  but  sim- 
ply to  quote  a  passage  from  Goethe 
which  gives  expression  to  a  positivism 


20      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

similar  to  Landor's.  Goethe  says  : 
"  But  an  able  man,  who  has  something 
to  do  here,  and  must  toil  and  strive 
day  by  day  to  accomplish  it,  leaves 
the  future  world  till  it  comes,  and 
contents  himself  with  being  active 
and  useful  in  this."  Nevertheless, 
Goethe's  positivism,  unlike  Landor's, 
is  occasionally  lighted  up  by  flashes 
of  insight  into  the  very  life  of  things, 
as  in  the  Prologue  in  Heaven  in 
Faust,  an  allegory  infinite  in  its 
suggestiveness. 

It  is  evident  from  what  has  been 
said  that  Landor  cannot  be  repre- 
sented as  one  of  the  mouth-pieces  of 
his  time,  since  he  was  not  coerced 
by  the  logic  of  contemporary  events 
to  the  choice  of  standpoints  coinci- 
dent with  those  of  his  fellow-think- 
ers, but  when  he  took  such  similar 
positions  was  constrained  by  the 
necessity  of  his  own  temperament 
rather   than  by  external  influences. 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  2 1 

In  other  words,  Landor  was  an  ideal- 
ist whose  intellectual  life  lay  in  the 
past. 

It  might  be  contended,  however, 
that  in  his  literary  criticism  and  his 
political  writings  Landor's  interests 
are  plainly  concerned  with  the  pres- 
ent, and  that  he  is  here  unquestion- 
ably the  child  of  his  age.  This  is 
only  partially  true.  It  is  conceded 
that  much  of  Landor's  criticism  is 
devoted  to  his  contemporaries,  and  is 
largely  appreciative.  In  one  of  the 
Imaginary  Conversations,  Southey 
and  Porson  discuss  with  much  dis- 
crimination the  merits  and  defects 
of  Wordsworth's  poetry,  and  pass  in 
review  the  Laodamia,  whose  classic 
restraint  naturally  appealed  to  a 
lover  of  Homer  and  ^Eschylus.  Lan- 
dor is  even  catholic  enough  to  ad- 
mire writers  so  at  variance  from  his 
own  standard  as  Dickens  and  Robert 
Browning.     Nevertheless,   the  large 


22      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

prerogatives  which  criticism  has  as- 
sumed in  this  age  were  not  at  all  well 
understood  by  him.  He  sometimes 
deals  hard  blows  against  the  Edin- 
burgh and  Quarterly  Reviews,  yet 
his  own  criticism  is  not  always  es- 
sentially different  from  Lord  Jef- 
frey's or  Gifford's.  Landor  was  fond 
of  impressing  his  "  whim  upon  the 
immutable  past,"  and  his  hot-headed 
admiration  or  repugnance  frequently 
disabled  him  from  striking  that  care- 
ful balance  which  is  necessary  to 
sane  literary  judgments.  Indeed 
his  estimates  rarely  appear  to  be 
thoroughly  reasoned.  They  concern 
themselves  almost  entirely  with 
qualities  of  style,  and  do  not  pene- 
trate the  personality  of  the  author 
and  grasp  his  relation  to  his  period. 
As  Mr.  John  Morley  admirably  puts 
it :  "  Minor  verse-writers  may  fairly 
be  consigned,  without  disrespect,  to 
the  region  of-  the  literature  of  taste  ; 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.   2  3 

and  criticism  of  their  work  takes  the 
shape  of  a  discussion  of  stray  graces, 
of  new  turns  of  thought,  of  little 
variations  of  shade  and  color,  of 
their  conformity  to  the  accepted 
rules  that  constitute  the  technique 
of  poetry.  The  loftier  masters  .  .  . 
besides  these  precious  gifts,  come  to 
us  with  the  size  and  quality  of  great 
historic  forces,  for  they  represent  the 
hopes  and  energies,  the  dreams  and 
the  consummation  of  the  human  in- 
telligence in  its  most  enormous  move- 
ments." Every  important  writer, 
therefore,  is  the  delegate  of  a  vast 
intellectual  and  moral  constituency, 
for  whose  needs  he  seeks  to  legis- 
late. Landor  himself  never  was,  nor 
sought  to  be,  such  a  social  force; 
and  he  did  not  view  other  writers 
under  this  aspect.  While  Carlyle 
and  later  critics  have  entered  into 
deep  sympathy  with  Dante,  regard- 
ing   him    as     the    efflorescence     of 


2  4      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

scholasticism  and  chivalry,  Landor 
studied  the  great  Florentine  as  an 
isolated  phenomenon,  and  thus  lost 
the  sense  of  historic  perspective. 

Nor  does  Landor  exhibit  that 
close  psychologic  and  philosophical 
insight  which  great  critics,  like  Cole- 
ridge and  Amiel,  possess.  Landor's 
criticism  makes  slight  endeavor  to 
seize  upon  an  author's  philosophy 
of  life  and  his  organizing  ideas,  and 
fails  to  trace  the  obscure  links  be- 
tween the  personality  of  a  writer 
and  his  literary  contributions.  Au- 
thors are  not  mere  logic  machines. 
Landor  himself  has  beautifully  said  : 
"  The  heart  is  the  creator  of  the 
poetical  world ;  only  the  atmosphere 
is  from  the  brain."  Hence  the  busi- 
ness of  the  critic  is  to  examine  the 
emotive  and  ethical  impulses  that 
lie  at  the  root  of  the  intellectual  life. 
For  this  kind  of  penetrative,  sympa- 
thetic criticism,  Landor  had  few^tal- 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.   2  5 

ents.  His  judgments,  on  the  other 
hand,  consist  in  a  somewhat  arbi- 
trary assertion,  generally  couched  in 
exquisite  imagery,  of  one  writer's 
superiority  over  another.  Now, 
nothing  is  easier,  and,  I  may  add, 
nothing  is  more  inconclusive  than 
for  a  critic  to  insist  upon  arranging 
his  victims  according  to  his  own 
ready-made,  graduated  scale  of  ex- 
cellence. This  defect  is  not  rare 
even  among  critics  of  note.  Not 
only  Landor,  but  Arnold,  in  his 
reasoned  dogmatism,  and  Swin- 
burne, in  his  intuitional  dogmatism, 
are  too  prone  to  set  up  their  own 
personal  estimate  of  the  rank  of 
an  author  as  the  supreme  tribunal 
from  which  there  is  no  appeal. 
Whereas,  it  must  be  apparent  that 
whether  one  shall  assert  Thackeray 
to  be  a  greater  novelist  than  Dick- 
ens, or  George  Eliot's  Middlemarch 
a    finer    novel    than     Mrs.    Ward's 


26      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

Robert  Elsmere,  will  depend  largely 
upon  temperament,  not  to  speak  of 
other  causes:  and  since  none  of  us 
can  boast  the  possession  of  an  ideal 
temperament,  with   faculties  ideally 
adjusted    and    harmonized ;    in    the 
midst  of  the  many  possible  criteria, 
both  intellectual  and  aesthetic,  it  be- 
comes the   part  of  wisdom  and  hu- 
mility  quietly   to   justify  the    faith 
that  is  in  us,  so  to  speak,  without 
representing  our  faith  as  the  meas- 
ure     of      the      credible.      Arnold's 
exaggerated    valuation     of     Byron, 
Swinburne's    of    Victor    Hugo,    and 
Landor's  of  his  friend  and  coadjutor, 
Southey,   are   to    be    classed,   there- 
fore,   as    deflections    from    tactful, 
well-reasoned    criticism.      The    last 
mentioned    preference    reminds    us, 
perhaps  unjustly,   of   Dr.  Johnson's 
remark,  that  "the  reciprocal  civility 
of  authors  is  one  of  the  most  risible 
scenes  in  the  farce  of  life." 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  2  7 

Now,  although  we  dare  not  retract 
any  of  these  strictures  upon  Lan- 
dor's  critical  power,  yet  we  would  be 
confessing  ourselves  deficient  in  this 
faculty  did  we  not  acknowledge  his 
invariably  fine  perception  on  the 
formal  side  of  literature.  Landor's 
catholic  range  of  reading,  and  his 
born  instinct  for  expression  enabled 
him — as  we  shall  have  frequent  oc- 
casion to  note  in  treating  of  his  own 
style — to  appraise  the  literary  quali- 
ties of  many  authors  both  ancient 
and  modern,  with  much  aesthetic  fi- 
nesse and  in  terms  that,  in  their  way, 
are  final.  Nevertheless,  just  as  we 
would  not  suppose  ourselves  to  have 
exhausted  a  good  painting,  when  we 
had  estimated  the  effects  of  perspec- 
tive, light  and  shade,  tone  and  grad- 
ation, and  the  other  technicalities, 
but  would  seek  above  all  to  enter 
into  the  emotional  life  of  the  artist, 
and  to  extract  the  idea  of  the  pic- 


28      Walter  Savage  Land  or. 

ture  ;  so  we  cannot  pluck  out  the 
heart  of  the  mystery  in  a  work  of 
prose  or  poetry  by  directing  our  crit- 
ical scalpels  merely  to  the  more  or 
less  superficial  phenomena  of  form, 
but  must  also  question  an  author  as 
to  his  organizing  ideas.  It  is  true, 
however,  that  matter  and  form,  idea 
and  execution,  are  so  fused  that  the 
formal  element  is  never  wholly  su- 
perficial. An  affected  style  is  just  as 
really  a  negative  index  of  thought 
and  character  as  are  the  positive 
indices,  simplicity  and  sincerity. 
Hence,  the  critic  who  discriminates 
nicely  the  forms  of  things  may  be  in 
a  fair  way  to  appreciate  the  things 
themselves. 

The  final  plea  that  might  be  made 
in  behalf  of  Landor  as  a  social  force, 
and  as  illustrative  of  his  age,  would 
be  drawn  from  his  political  composi- 
tions. Born  at  the  beginning  of  the 
American  Revolution,  and  dying  near 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.   29 

the  close  of  our  Civil  War,  and  all 
through  his  life  feeling  an  intense 
sympathy  in  English  and  Continental 
politics,  Landor  would  seem  to  be 
peculiarly  fitted  to  take  a  compre- 
hensive and  disinterested  view  of 
European  polity.  It  remains  true, 
however,  that  his  political  diatribes 
and  conversations  are  the  least  bal- 
anced, the  most  ephemeral,  of  his 
productions.  In  many  of  them,  this 
fact  might  be  ascribed  to  the  neces- 
sity of  the  case  ;  since  even  a  spir- 
ited refutation  of  some  partisan  meas- 
ure, arising  from  the  exigency  of  the 
moment,  could  not  be  expected  to 
have  enough  permanent  applicability 
to  keep  it  alive  amid  the  fading  cir- 
cumstances which  it  celebrated.  This 
explanation,  however,  is  not  suffi- 
cient. The  main  fault  lay  in  Lan- 
dor's  unbridled  enthusiasm,  and  his 
inability  to  make  careful  inductions. 
Aroused  by  an  exalted  longing  for 


30       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

liberty  and  justice,  Landor  lost  all 
power  of  discrimination.  Every  Pole 
or  Italian  or  Greek  who  fought  for 
freedom  was  an  angel  of  light,  and 
all  their  opponents  were  angels  of 
darkness.  Proceeding  upon  this  pos- 
tulate, Landor  indulges  in  rhetoric, 
idealistic  and  grandiose.  At  times 
there  is  a  resonance  in  his  periods 
equal  to  the  most  dignified  utterances 
of  Cicero.  Yet  because  of  his  impa- 
tient contempt  for  considerations  of 
expediency  or  compromise,  because 
of  his  hot-headed  political  idealism, 
he  usually  fails  so  to  grasp  the  situ- 
ation as  to  make  his  appeals  tell. 
Perhaps  if  he  had  entertained  some- 
what more  regard  for  the  man  of 
statecraft,  and  had  tried,  now  and 
then,  to  take  the  politician's  point 
of  view,  his  pleas  might  have  pos- 
sessed more  weight. 

As  it  was,  Landor  cannot  be  called 
a  normal   citizen.       His  social  rela- 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  3 1 

tionships  were  of  the  most  varied 
and  delightful  sort,  but  his  political 
ties  were  virtually  non-existent — ex- 
cept when  he  got  into  one  of  his  nu- 
merous squabbles  with  the  Italian 
police  or  with  some  other  officials  at 
home  or  abroad.  True,  while  at 
Llanthony,  he  sought  to  obtain  a 
magistracy ;  and  how  like  an  out- 
raged Roman  did  he  behave  when 
for  some  petty  reason  it  was  refused 
him.  Yet  all  through  his  life,  sub- 
sequent to  his  youthful  experience 
as  a  disciple  of  that  whimsical  old 
pedant  and  politician,  Dr.  Parr,  Lan- 
dor held  himself  aloof  from  practical 
politics,  and  even  boasted,  after  the 
manner  of  Thoreau,  that  he  had 
never  entered  a  club,  and  never  cast 
a  vote.  Knowing  this,  we  sometimes 
grow  impatient  with  his  oft-repeated 
tirades  against  the  politician,  and 
his  dogmatic  insistance  on  the  supe- 
riority of  the  man   of  letters.      We 


3  2       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

feel  at  such  times  that  Landor  pre- 
fers heat  to  light. 

Holding  the  idea  of  war  in  noble 
detestation,  Landor  was  wont  to  in- 
sist, with  much  show  of  seriousness, 
upon  the  justifiability  of  tyrannicide. 
And  he  makes  Demosthenes  say, 
characteristically  :  "  Rapine  and  li- 
centiousness are  the  precursors  and 
followers  of  even  the  most  righteous 
war.  A  single  blow  against  the 
worst  of  mortals  may  prevent  them. 
Many  years  and  much  treasure  are 
usually  required  for  an  uncertain 
issue,  besides  the  stagnation  of  traf- 
fic the  prostration  of  industry,  the 
innumerable  maladies  arising  from 
towns  besieged,  and  regions  depopu- 
lated. A  moment  is  sufficient  to 
avert  all  these  calamities.  No  usurp- 
er, no  invader,  should  be  permitted 
to  exist  on  earth."  Nothing  could 
illustrate  better  than  this  Landor's 
emphatic  recognition  of  the  power 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  33 

inherent  in  chosen  individuals.  With 
a  sublime  disregard  of  what  we  now 
call  the  force  of  heredity  and  en- 
vironment,— comprehending  in  this 
phrase  social  custom  and  individual 
habit,  and  sentiments  which  outlive 
the  ideas  producing  them,  all  those 
subtle  and  manifold  causes,  mental 
and  material,  which  superimpose 
their  weight  upon  personality,  — 
Landor  seems  to  look  upon  men  and 
things  as  pawns  which  a  tyrant  can 
dispose  of  according  to  his  whim. 
This  individualistic  idealism,  which 
could  slur  over  whole  series  of  causes, 
rendered  him  incapable  of  entering 
into  the  inner  life  of  history,  as  it 
is  seen  in  the  action  of  masses  of 
men.  Thus,  for  example,  the  philo- 
sophic aspect  of  that  greatest  of  all 
cataclysms,  the  French  Revolution, 
was  without  its  full  rationale  to  Lan- 
dor's  mind.  That  the  streams  of 
tendency  which  proceeded  from  the 


34      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

Aufklarimg, — from  the  Encyclopae- 
dists, from  Rousseau,  and  the  rest, — 
uniting  with  the  pent-up  emotions 
of  a  people  downtrodden  by  priest 
and  noble,  but  at  last  awakened  to  a 
sense  of  their  prerogatives,  should 
flow  on  with  ever-accelerated  speed 
to  the  horrors  of  1792,  was  certainly 
a  spectacle  calculated  to  excite  the 
intense  interest  of  all  on-lookers. 
Yet  we  do  not  find  Landor  following 
the  drama  with  the  intelligent  sym- 
pathy of  Wordsworth  or  Coleridge. 
There  is  a  germ  of  truth  in  Carlyle's 
saying,  reported  by  Emerson,  that 
"  Landor's  principle  was  mere  rebel- 
lion." Relative  to  this  time,  Forster 
says  of  him  :  "  He  reasoned  little, 
but  his  instincts  were  all  against 
authority,  or  what  took  to  him  the 
form  of  its  abuse."  Thus  he  sided 
with  the  French  Republic,  but  he 
did  so  without  an  adequate  insight 
into     the     causes     from     which    it 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  35 

sprang  or  the  direction   in   which  it 
tended. 

In  several  ways  a  parallel  might  be 
drawn  between  the  political  princi- 
ples of  Landor  and  those  of  Milton. 
Both  were  iconoclasts ;  both  were 
apostles  of  the  idea,  but  while  Mil- 
ton's a  priori  reasoning  was  the  nat- 
ural outcome  of  his  age,  Landor's 
was  opposed  to  the  inductive  spirit, 
which  is  ever  growing  stronger  and 
more  effective  ;  both  longed  for  the 
time  when  the  few  virtuous  and  wise 
would  bear  rule,  yet  without  creating 
any  definite  constructive  scheme  by 
which  their  hopes  might  be  realized. 
Both  must  take  a  second  rank  as 
political  thinkers, — though  Milton, 
of  course,  stands  far  above  Landor, 
— because  both  failed  so  to  ground 
their  aspirations  upon  sound  prece- 
dent and  present  conditions  as  that 
a  rejuvenescent  future  could,  by  their 
efforts,  grow  out  of  the  past,  as  the 


36       Walter  Savage  Laiidor. 

flower  from  its  stalk.  Both  abhorred 
a  many-headed  Demos,  where,  in- 
stead of  one  tyrant,  there  are  thou- 
sands. Indeed  Landor  could  never 
bring  himself  to  stomach  our  own 
republican  institutions,  regarding 
them  in  somewhat  the  same  light 
as  did  Matthew  Arnold.  Landor 
loved  the  distinction  and  charm 
which  emanate  from  a  true  nobility  ; 
and  while  he  also  loved  the  people 
he  loved  them  as  some  of  us  do — at 
a  dignified  distance. 

But  it  may  suddenly  be  asked: 
"  If  all  this  is  true  of  Landor;  if  he 
neither  portrays  the  life  of  his  age, 
nor  represents  its  tendencies,  and  if, 
even  in  those  occupations  where  he 
attempted  to  affect  his  generation, 
in  criticism  and  political  pamphlet, 
he  does  not  vitally  affect  it,  just  what 
is  his  claim  upon  the  lover  of  litera- 
ture and  of  life?"  If  the  converse 
of  Spinoza's  famous  dictum  be  true, 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  3  7 

if  all  negation  be  determination,  as 
it  undoubtedly  is,  then  our  efforts  at 
estimating  Landor  by  a  process  of 
exclusion  have  not  been  valueless. 
Notwithstanding,  it  is  high  time  to 
give  some  positive  reasons  for  regard- 
ing him  as  a  master  in  the  field  of 
thought  and  expression  ;  and  this  we 
can  now  do  with  a  clear  conscience 
and  without  reservations. 

Landor  was,  in  its  most  exclusive 
sense,  a  literary  man.  Unlike  so 
many  in  our  own  day  he  made  no 
serious  attempt,  except  it  might  be 
in  his  pleas  for  spelling  reform,  to 
combine  literature  with  any  kind  of 
propagandism,  philosophical,  scien- 
tific, religious,  or  ethical.  He  came 
near  to  trying  this  in  his  political 
writings ;  but,  as  we  saw,  he  was 
there  ineffective.  Furthermore,  Lan- 
dor was  a  deep  student  and  portrayer 
of  the  past.  But  we  prefer  not  to 
place  too  much  emphasis  upon  his 


38       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

classical  and  pagan  cast  of  mind ;  be- 
cause we  regard  such  catch-words  as 
inexact  and  misleading.  Landor  was 
a  member  of  no  sect  which  might 
wave  its  classical  or  romantic  banner. 
And  if  he  was  at  home  in  ancient 
Greece,  he  was  also  acclimated  to  the 
Italy  of  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio,  and 
the  England  of  Shakspeare  or  of 
Cromwell.  In  nothing  is  he  more 
distinctive  than  in  his  haughty  inde- 
pendence of  mere  models.  Like  the 
artist  of  the  early  Renaissance,  nature 
was  his  teacher,  and  he  knew  no  other. 
This  fact  constitutes  one  of  his  claims 
upon  our  consideration  ;  for  any  man 
who  can  look  upon  the  drama  of  life 
about  him,  and  into  his  own  soul,  and 
then  tell  what  he  sees,  will  always 
afford  the  needed  spectacles  for  our 
purblind  eyes.  Landor  was,  as  Mrs. 
Browning  well  said,  "  most  Greek, 
because  most  English  "  ;  since  it  is 
not  he  who  mimics  the  Greeks,  but 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.   39 

he  who  does  as  the  Greeks  did, 
namely,  follows  nature — he  it  is  who 
possesses  their  spirit.  Therefore,  it 
is  not  as  an  antiquarian  that  we 
would  eulogize  Landor.  Indeed, 
when  he  plays  this  role,  he  is  rarely 
successful;  for  his  scholarship  was 
not  of  that  infinitely  painstaking 
sort  which  requires  everything,  down 
to  the  lacing  of  a  sandal,  to  conform 
to  the  original.  Landor  listened  to 
the  men  and  women  around  him,  he 
listened  to  the  beatings  of  his  own 
sympathetic  heart  ;  and  then,  with 
these  tones  still  ringing  in  his  soul, 
he  shut  his  eyes ;  and  lo,  long  pro- 
cessions of  the  good,  the  great,  and 
the  unfortunate  of  former  days  filed 
before  him  ;  he  watched  their  pensive 
gestures,  he  caught  their  calm  reflec- 
tions or  their  impassioned  replies ; 
and  straightway  he  chiselled  and 
polished  the  fast  vanishing  scene 
in  statuesque  verse  or  monumental 


40      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

prose.  Landor,  therefore,  fixed  his 
gaze  neither  upon  a  model  nor  an 
audience,  but  upon  the  object  it- 
self. Such  a  consecrated  ideal  of 
authorship  will  always,  as  it  did  in 
Landor's  case,  bear  its  measure  of 
fruit. 

One  of  the  ways  of  appreciating 
Landor's  works  is  to  approach  them 
through  the  medium  of  his  person- 
ality. As  a  man  he  was  as  unique  as 
Oliver  Goldsmith  or  Dr.  Johnson. 
In  outward  appearance  he  stood  for 
the  prince  and  lion  among  men — his 
face  showing  great  force  and  aggres- 
siveness, with  high  arched  brow, 
strongly  moulded  nose,  and  a  mouth 
whose  downward  curving  lines  sug- 
gest a  passionate  and  even  caustic 
nature.  Yet,  in  the  presence  of  his 
friends,  and  especially  of  ladies,  this 
face  could  beam  with  a  wealth  of 
old-world  grace  and  courtesy,  his 
whole    demeanor    bespeaking    that 


Landor  as  a  Ma7i  of  Letters.  4 1 

dignity  and  deference  which  the  rapid 
intercourse  of  our  later  day  rarely 
takes  time  for.  His  actions,  his  biog- 
raphers tell  us,  were  a  trifle  awkward 
— not,  of  course,  from  ill-breeding, 
but  from  the  aimlessness  of  the  un- 
practical man.  And,  indeed,  in  its 
way,  we  may  imagine  that  this  fact 
made  his  manners  all  the  more  at- 
tractive. In  his  not  infrequent  fits 
of  ungovernable  passion,  it  is  said 
that  his  thumbs  were  not  clinched, 
but  relaxed,  this  seeming  to  indicate 
that  his  rage  was  louder  than  it  was 
deep,  that  it  was  a  habit  of  speech 
and  gesture  rather  than  the  dethrone- 
ment of  personality,  and  the  entire 
subordination  of  will  to  animal  im- 
pulse. In  other  words,  it  is  probable 
that  Landor  never  completely  lost 
himself  in  these  wild  exhibitions  of 
temper, — that  he  never  completely 
sacrificed  his  freedom  to  a  mere 
brutish    determinism.      While     the 


42       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

surface  of  his  soul  was  in  turmoil  the 
depths  lay  undisturbed. 

Too  much  emphasis  has  been 
placed  upon  Landor's  impetuous, 
ungovernable  temperament  by  his 
critics.  To  insist  upon  this  side  of 
his  character  is  to  view  him  superfi- 
cially. It  is  as  though  one  should 
put  special  stress  upon  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  lameness,  or  Charles  Lamb's 
propensity  to  stammer.  Landor's 
pride  and  anger  never  penetrated 
into  the  sanctuary  of  his  soul-life, 
and  profaned  his  better  nature.  They 
were  merely  uproarious  protestations 
against  an  ungenial  environment. 
And  in  almost  every  case,  if  the 
motives  which  animated  his  wild 
outbreaks  should  be  examined,  they 
would  be  found  noble,  though  mis- 
applied. Possessed  of  a  just  regard 
for  his  dignity  and  high  desert,  he 
was  all  aflame  at  the  suspicion  of  a 
slight.      Thus   there    is    something 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  43 

amusing,  if  it  were  not  so  pathetic, 
in  Landor's  majestic  letter  to  Lord 
Normanby,  in  retort  upon  this  Eng- 
lish minister's  cold  reception  of  him 
at  the  Cascine,  in  the  presence  of 
"  innumerable  Florentines."  This  was 
in  Landor's  old  age,  after  his  gen- 
erosity and  gallant  attentions  to  a 
young  girl  at  Bath  had  been  shame- 
fully misrepresented  ;  and  he,  having 
resorted  to  his  old  childish  weapons 
of  satiric  verse,  had  been  obliged  to 
pay  a  heavy  fine,  and  had  left  his 
native  country,  sorrow-stricken  yet 
unconquered.  The  letter  closes  with 
these  majestic  words  :  "  We  are  both 
of  us  old  men,  my  lord,  and  are 
verging  on  decrepitude  and  imbe- 
cility, else  my  note  might  be  more 
energetic.  I  am  not  inobservant  of 
distinctions.  You  by  the  favor  of  a 
minister  are  the  Marquis  of  Nor- 
manby, I  by  the  grace  of  God  am 
"  Walter  Savage  Landor." 


44       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

Indeed,  the  six  years  that  Landor 
lived  after  the  Bath  scandal  are  so 
filled  with  pathetic  material  that  his 
indiscretions  of  former  days  are  for- 
gotten in  our  indignation  at  the 
exasperating  treatment  which  "  the 
old  lion  "  received,  even  at  the  hands 
of  his  own  family,  and  in  our  admi- 
ration for  the  general  nobility  of  his 
aims.  And  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  Landor's  wrath  was  aroused 
by  an  affront  or  insult  done  to  others 
as  effectually  as  though  it  had  been 
done  to  himself.  His  anger  was  a 
perversion  of  a  noble  attribute — 
an  unbending,  though  not  always 
accurate,  sense  of  justice.  There- 
fore, if  Professor  Dowden  means 
to  convey  a  weighty  observation, 
when  he  remarks  that  the  first  thing 
one  is  tempted  to  say  of  Landor  is, 
that  he  was  emphatically  "  an  unciv- 
ilized man,"  he  is  giving  by  no  means 
a    fair   impression    of    our   author's 


La?idor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  45 

character.  Landor  was,  like  Car- 
lyle  or  Emerson,  or  other  great  per- 
sonages, somewhat  of  an  aboriginal 
man.  It  was  inherent  in  his  nature 
to  make  unique  estimates.  He  never 
sought  to  drain  the  currents  of  his 
thought  into  established  channels, 
but  preferred  above  all  things  to 
place  his  own  independent  construc- 
tion upon  the  facts  of  the  universe. 
This  construction,  however,  was  not 
always  the  sound  product  of  reflec- 
tion. Too  often  it  was  the  result  of 
unreasoning  prejudice,  of  likes  and 
dislikes  canonized  by  mere  dint  of 
repetition.  Nevertheless,  even  these 
ideas  have  their  interest  as  proceed- 
ing from  a  massive  and  original  per- 
sonality. While  ordinary  men  dress, 
think,  and  act  after  the  pattern  of 
their  day,  extraordinary  men  create 
a  taste  rather  than  conform  to  one. 
From  the  common  man's  standpoint 
Landor    was    certainly    uncivilized. 


46       Waller  Savage  Landor. 

He  was  uncivilized  in  his  flaring 
bursts  of  anger.  But  his  passion 
was  not  a  fire  smouldering  unsus- 
pected beneath  the  ashes.  It  was 
the  sudden  response  of  a  proud  and, 
withal,  a  gracious  nature.  Therefore, 
to  apply  the  word  uncivilized  to  one 
of  Landor's  exquisite  refinement  and 
delicacy  ;  to  him  whose  princely  po- 
liteness, even  such  a  connoisseur  as 
Lady  Blessington  signalized,  and 
whose  representations  of  women, 
and  of  all  that  is  beautiful  and  suave, 
have  been  surpassed  neither  by  an- 
cient nor  modern, — is  ill-timed  as  well 
as  inaccurate. 

Landor  was,  as  we  have  intimated, 
a  man,  generous,  ardent,  and  sincere. 
We  do  not  therefore  propose  to  go 
over  the  tiresome  list  of  his  misun- 
derstandings and  quarrels  with  fel- 
low-students, teachers,  father,  wife, 
friends,  publishers,  and  civil  officials. 
His  biographers  give  us  little  more 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  47 

than  the  bare  facts  in  the  case ; 
the  mitigating  circumstances  and 
explanations  we  are  usually  left  to 
infer  as  best  we  may.  We  must 
judge  Landor  by  his  high  ideal  of 
dignified  and  gracious  conduct  rather 
than  by  his  performance,  which  may 
have  been  ludicrously  undignified. 
Viewed  from  a  somewhat  external 
and  unsympathetic  standpoint,  the 
world  is  hopelessly  vulgar.  It  seems 
to  care  so  little  for  intellectual  pur- 
suits. It  lives  in  an  atmosphere 
where  ideas  look  so  hazy,  and  gold  is 
more  dazzling  than  the  sun.  It  is 
only  natural,  therefore,  that  an  un- 
practical idealist  like  Landor  should 
have  found  the  world  a  place  hard  to 
breathe  in.  He  preferred  to  walk 
"alone  on  the  far  eastern  uplands, 
meditating  and  remembering."  He 
even  goes  so  far  as  to  write  to  Lady 
Blessington  :  "  Most  things  are  real 
to    me,  except    realities."     And    in- 


48       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

deed,  Landor  seems  to  have  let  the 
reality  of  family  ties  hang  about 
him  but  loosely.  Thus,  in  the  spring 
of  1835  he  could  leave  his  fair  Italian 
home,  his  wife  and  children,  without 
apparently  any  violent  wrench  with 
the  past,  and  without  any  excruciat- 
ing compunctions,  because,  forsooth, 
his  wife's  temper  did  not  quite  tally 
with  his  own  proud,  commanding 
ways.  For  years  afterward  he  could 
lead  an  independent  life  at  Bath,  not 
allowing  the  thought  of  his  duty  as 
husband  and  father  to  interrupt  an 
agreeable  social  intercourse  or  a 
pleasant  trend  of  meditation.  And 
after  grief  had  passed  "  into  near 
Memory's  more  quiet  shade,"  he 
could  say  good-bye  to  Italy  in  this 
impersonal  manner  : 

"  I  leave  thee,  beauteous  Italy  !  no  more 
From  the  high  terraces,  at  even-tide, 
To  look  supine  into  thy  depths  of  sky, 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  49 

Thy  golden  moon  between  the  cliff 

and  me, 
Or  thy  dark  spires  of  fretted  cypresses 
Bordering  the   channel  of  the  milky 

way." 

While  one  cannot  but  feel  the 
charm  of  these  lines,  as  a  natural  de- 
scription, it  were  well  if  they  had 
been  ethicalized,  so  to  speak,  by  a 
few  regrets  at  parting  from  wife  and 
children,  by  a  few  compunctions  at 
severing  the  most  responsible  and 
enduring  of  ties.  But  Landor,  un- 
like most  persons,  does  not  appear 
to  have  minded  these  sudden  breaks 
in  his  existence.  All  that  he  re- 
quired was  an  ideal  or  imaginative 
continuity  of  life.  If  he  only  had 
the  worthies  of  former  days  that  he 
might  glory  in  their  deeds  and  weep 
over  their  sufferings,  he  was  content. 
In  examining  such  a  character,  it  is 
therefore  more  profitable  to  ask  how 
he  realized  himself   in  his  writings 


50      Walter  Savage  Landov. 

than  how  he  failed  to  realize  himself 
in  the  exasperating  concerns  of  daily 
life.  Of  Landor,  as  indeed  of  most 
authors,  it  is  manifest  that  his  books 
are  his  truest  self. 

A  first  word  to  be  said  of  Landor 
as  a  literary  man  is,  that  he  was 
unswervingly  original.  He  repre- 
sented the  Independent  in  the  Re- 
public of  Letters.  He  was  an  avowed 
enemy  to  the  prevailing  habit  of 
quotation,  and  he  stoutly  refused  to 
put  into  the  mouth  of  his  speakers 
any  sentiments  that  history  might 
have  ascribed  to  them.  He  sought 
by  his  fine  historic  imagination  to 
catch  and  portray  real  men,  not  their 
mannerisms.  This  proud  indepen- 
dent spirit  was  the  source  of  his 
strength  and  of  his  weakness.  On  the 
one  hand,  it  led  him  to  uphold  the 
dignity  and  disinterestedness  of  lit- 
erature, and  to  aim  above  all  things 
at  satisfying  his  own  exacting  sense 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  5 1 

for  literary  form.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  brought  him  into  conflict  with  his 
audience.  There  is  a  just  mean  be- 
tween the  low  men-pleaser  and  the 
literary  aristocrat.  And  this  mean 
Landor  never  took  the  pains  to  strike. 
He  is  either  unsympathetic  with  his 
readers,  or  else  oblivious  of  them. 
Therefore  he  sometimes  leaves  his 
meaning  needlessly  opaque.  His 
ideal,  comprehending  a  classic  sever- 
ity and  restraint  of  speech,  he  makes 
no  effort  to  supply  his  audience  with 
necessary  sequences  and  comfortable 
transitions.  He  sometimes  cuts  away 
the  ground,  so  that  it  requires  an 
agile  imagination  to  take  the  leap 
from  point  to  point.  This  fact  goes 
some  way  toward  accounting  for 
Landor's  unpopularity,  the  reasons 
for  which  have  been  discussed  by  his 
critics  ad  nauseam.  And  relevant  to 
this  discussion  we  may  remark,  that, 
to  judge  from  recent  attractive  edi- 


5  2       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

tions  of  the  Imaginary  Conversa- 
tions, the  Examination  of  Shakspcare, 
and  the  Pericles  and  Aspasia,  what 
has  been  satirized  as  Landor's  "  late- 
dinner  theory"  bids  fair  to  be  real- 
ized, notwithstanding  the  head-shak- 
ings of  dubious  critics. 

Landor's  high  ideal  of  authorship 
is  seen  in  his  manner  of  writing.  His 
carefulness  showed  itself,  not  so  much 
in  his  collection  of  materials,  as  in 
his  efforts  after  adequacy  of  expres- 
sion. For  his  facts  he  depended 
upon  a  tenacious  memory,  which 
could  open  at  will  the  vast  store- 
house of  his  reading  and  reflection. 
Landor's  library,  at  any  one  time,  was 
small.  Actuated  by  an  inveterate 
generosity,  he  mastered  a  book  and 
then  gave  it  away.  But  notwith- 
standing this  lack,  he  could  write 
letters  between  Pericles  and  Aspasia 
which  are  so  fraught  with  Hellenic 
grace  and  beauty,  even  down  to  the 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  53 

merest  detail,  that  only  a  lifeless 
antiquary  would  be  so  irrelevant  as 
to  insist  upon  historic  inaccuracies. 
And  in  regard  to  style,  that  man 
must  indeed  be  a  master  in  the  art 
of  literary  expression  who  would 
pick  serious  flaws  in  Landor's  work- 
manship. This  perfection  of  form 
sprang  partly  from  a  gift,  and  partly 
from  a  faculty  for  taking  pains.  Lan- 
dor used  to  compose  in  the  open 
air,  surrounded  by  the  flowers  and 
dumb  creatures,  which  he  looked 
upon  as  humble  companions.  Here 
his  sympathetic,  fibrous  voice  might 
be  heard  repeating  and  testing  his  sen- 
tences, until  they  became  as  beauti- 
fully modulated  as  a  cathedral  organ 
in  the  hands  of  a  master  musician. 
His  whole  soul  was  in  his  work,  and 
he  was  deeply  sincere  when  he  said  : 
"  I  hate  false  words,  and  seek  with 
care,  difficulty,  and  moroseness  those 
that  fit  the  thing."      He  could  not 


54       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

divert  his  imagination  from  the  par- 
ticular subject  under  way,  and  was 
at  a  loss  to  conceive  how  Southey 
was  able  to  compose  two  poems  at 
one  time.  "  When  I  write  a  poem, 
my  heart  and  all  my  feelings  are 
upon  it.  I  never  commit  adultery 
with  another,  and  high  poems  will 
not  admit  flirtation."  It  is  indeed 
hard  to  find  the  literary  conscience 
as  fully  developed  as  it  was  in  Lan- 
dor. There  is,  however,  at  least  one 
other  instance  on  record, — that  of 
the  French  novelist  Flaubert,  who 
was  almost  a  fanatic  on  style,  and 
used  to  exclaim  in  thunderous  tones: 
"  No,  the  only  important  and  endur- 
ing thing  under  the  sun,  is  a  well 
formed  sentence,  a  sentence  with 
hand  and  foot,  that  harmonizes  with 
the  sentences  preceding  and  follow- 
ing it,  and  that  falls  pleasantly  on 
the  ear  when  it  is  read."  And  Flau- 
bert,  they    say,    would    relentlessly 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.   55 

pursue  a  repeated  word,  even  at  the 
distance  of  thirty  or  forty  lines,  and 
so  much  as  the  recurrence  of  the 
same  syllable  in  the  same  sentence 
annoyed  him.  Sometimes,  becoming 
dissatisfied  with  a  single  letter,  he 
would  spare  no  pains  till  he  had 
lighted  upon  a  substitute  word. 
Such  struggles  to  attain  perfection 
remind  one  of  the  all-night  agony 
that  Landor  experienced,  when  he 
thought  he  had  been  guilty  of  a  false 
quantity,  in  making  the  first  vowel 
of  the  word  flagrans  short,  in  one  of 
his  Latin  poems,  which  he  had  just 
before  sent  off  for  publication. 

These  efforts,  as  we  have  intimated, 
were  not  in  vain.  The  texture  of 
Landor's  style  represents  an  exquisite 
blending  of  diversified  materials. 
And  though  there  maybe  rents  now 
and  then  in  the  thought,  there  are  at 
least  no  visible  patches  in  the  ex- 
pression.    Moreover,  the  style  is  an 


56       Walter  Savage  Lanc/or. 

admirable  exposition  of  the  man 
himself,  its  primary  qualities  being 
rightly  of  an  ethical  rather  than  of  a 
purely  intellectual  cast.  While  at 
times  Landor  condescends  to  sculp- 
ture his  sentences  in  a  winning, 
graceful,  Praxitelean  way,  he  is  in 
the  main  characteristically  epic,  his 
periods  possessing  the  dignity  and 
massiveness  of  Phidian  marbles.  By 
epic,  I  refer  to  his  grand  com- 
pendious manner,  and  would  not  be 
understood  to  imply  that  our  author 
has  that  "  divine  fluidity  of  move- 
ment," which  Matthew  Arnold  finds 
to  be  so  characteristic  of  Homer  and 
Chaucer.  Indeed,  it  is  just  the  ab- 
sence of  this,  that  one  notices  in 
Landor's  prose,  which  is  not  pro- 
gressive, but  is  rather  a  series  of 
sentences  organically  related,  yet  at 
the  same  time  semi-detached,  each 
standing  out  in  bold  relief.  This 
peculiarity  is  what  we  would  call  the 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  5  7 

static  quality  of  Landor's  prose.  And 
we  by  no  means  criticise  his  work- 
manship because  it  possesses  this 
quality  to  such  a  high  degree  ;  since, 
for  the  utterance  of  solid  reflections 
upon  human  nature,  this  is  the  ideal 
style — a  style  where  the  sentences 
are  made  up  of  semi-independent 
clauses,  and  where  all  is  eminently 
direct,  simple,  and  urbane. 

But  when  this  dignified  and  some- 
what sententious  manner  is  made  the 
vehicle  for  writing  of  a  dramatic 
rather  than  a  reflective  cast,  there 
results  a  species  of  classicism,  which 
Landor's  dialogues  of  action  splen- 
didly exhibit.  And  as  the  word 
classic  is  frequently  used  in  a  vague, 
indiscriminate  way,  it  is  well  to  mark 
that  this  peculiarity,  namely,  the 
expression  of  impassioned  thought 
in  terms  of  strict  grammatical  so- 
briety, is  one  of  the  several  features 
of  the  classicist.     Unwilling  to  con- 


58       Walter  Savage  La?idor. 

tort  his  style  or  to  sacrifice  ideal 
excellence  to  a  crude  realism,  Landor 
was  careful  that  his  personages  should 
maintain  a  certain  degree  of  regular- 
ity and  precision  of  utterance,  even 
in  the  most  animated  dialogues.  And 
as  all  true  art  is  a  spiritual  interpre- 
tation of  nature  and  the  human  soul, 
and  is  selective,  and  therefore  above 
reality,  he  was  justified  in  the  result. 
In  this  respect  Landor  somewhat  re- 
sembles Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  who, 
as  Mr.  Lathrop  says,  "  could  scarcely 
permit  his  actors  to  speak  loosely  or 
ungrammatically." 

But  after  the  knife  of  criticism  has 
done  its  best  to  dissect  the  charm  of 
a  style  like  Landor's,  the  essence  of 
its  beauty,  so  volatile  and  yet  so  real, 
has  vanished  ;  and  we  must  be  con- 
tent to  admire  even  if  we  cannot 
fully  formulate  our  admiration.  Suf- 
fice it  to  say,  that  Landor's  wonderful 
style,  taken  in  connection  with  the 


Landor  as  a  Man  of  Letters.  59 

delicate  aphorisms,  the  weighty  re- 
flections, and  the  noble  and  beautiful 
scenes  from  the  drama  of  human  life 
— which  he  has  given  us  in  the  books 
we  are  about  to  examine  more  par- 
ticularly,— is  enough  to  secure  him 
a  permanent  place  in  literature.  A 
very  few  writers,  like  Aristotle,  live 
by  sheer  force  of  thought  ;  the  vast 
majority  live  by  the  force  of  a  fine 
style  in  vital  union  with  fine  thought. 
Landor  belongs  to  this  latter  class. 


II. 

LANDOR'S   POETRY. 


61 


II. 

LANDOR'S  POETRY. 

Though  Landor  was  wont  to  refer 
to  verse  as  his  pastime,  and  prose  as 
his  occupation,  still  the  quality  of 
much  of  his  poetry  is  high  enough 
to  merit  an  appreciative  recognition. 
Brought  up  according  to  the  English 
school  system,  which  trains  the  youth 
to  acquire  a  facility  in  scribbling 
Latin  verses,  Landor,  as  was  natural, 
took  so  readily  to  the  translation 
of  Greek  and  Roman  themes  into 
rhymed  pentameters,  that  by  his 
twentieth  year  he  had  gotten  out  his 
first  volume  of  English  and  Latin  po- 
ems, some  satiric,  others  descriptive. 
What  especially  strikes  one  in  the 
63 


64       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

selections  which  Forster  has  pre- 
served of  these  verses  is  their  con- 
ventional manner. 

"  So,  when  Medea,  on  her  native  strand, 
Beheld  the  Argo  lessen  from  the  land  ; 
The  tender  pledges  of  her  love  she 

bore, 
Frantic,  and  raised  them  high  above 

the  shore. 
'  Thus,   thus   may  Jason,  faithless  as 

he  flies, 
Faithless    and    heedless    of    Medea's 

cries, 
Behold  his  babes,  oppose  the  adverse 

gales, 
Return    to     Colchis     those     retiring 


sails 


>  >> 


This    is    the    artificial   sing-song   of 
Pope's  muse. 

Yet  by  his  twenty-third  year  Lan- 
dor had  brought  out  another  poem 
Gebir,  whose  massive  blank  verse 
is  as  far  removed  from  Pope  as  is 


Landors  Poetry.  65 

the  Paradise  Lost  from  the  Essay  on 
Man.  The  advance  is  remarkable. 
Yet  we  do  not  agree  with  Forster  in 
ascribing  it  to  the  effect  of  making 
translations.  We  would  rather  say 
that  the  efficient  cause  was  Landor's 
careful  and  enthusiastic  study  of 
Milton.  Some  time  after  his  rusti- 
cation from  Oxford,  Landor  settled 
in  a  wild  secluded  spot  of  Wales. 
And  here  he  fell  in  with  Pindar, 
whose  "  proud  complacency  and 
scornful  strength  "  he  particularly 
noted,  and  whose  poetry  he  resolved 
to  imitate,  at  least  as  respects  its 
weighty  brevity  and  exclusiveness. 
Here,  also,  he  used  to  declaim,  with 
glowing  admiration,  the  magnificent 
lines  of  Paradise  Lost,  and  at  last 
came  to  think  that  even  the  great 
hexameter  sounded  tinkling  when 
he  had  recited  aloud,  in  his  solitary 
walks  on  the  seashore,  the  haughty 
appeal  of  Satan  and  the  repentance 


66      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

of  Eve.  It  is,  then,  to  the  influence 
of  our  greatest  master  in  the  grand 
style  that  we  would  find  Landor 
most  indebted  for  the  many  fine 
qualities  contained  in  the  verse  of 
Gebir. 

Before  estimating  the  value  of 
this  poem,  it  is  only  just  that  we 
should  make  a  general  remark  upon 
Landor  as  a  poet — a  remark  which 
must  tend  irrevocably  to  fix  his 
place  in  the  choir  of  the  muses.  Un- 
like the  genius  of  the  great  original 
bards,  Landor's  poetic  talent  does 
not  seem  to  have  sprung  from  an 
irresistible  necessity  of  his  soul 
towards  self-expression.  Nor  does 
his  poetry  appear  to  have  developed 
naturally  from  within  outward,  from 
the  early  lyric  outpourings  of  a  soli- 
tary soul  to  the  later  dramatic  and 
epic  representations,  when  the  mind 
has  grown  more  familiar  with  the 
world  around  it.     On  the  contrary, 


Landors  Poetry.  67 

Landor's  first  two  considerable 
poems  were  an  epic  and  a  tragedy ; 
his  later  poetry  was  in  the  main 
pastoral  or  erotic.  This  develop- 
ment, or  perhaps  lack  of  develop- 
ment, is  the  reverse  of  the  normal 
growth  of  a  poet's  mind,  as  is  seen 
in  Shakspeare  or  Milton,  and  sug- 
gests that  Landor  never  felt  the 
poetic  impulse  as  a  sacred  and  irre- 
sistible mission.  He  says  in  Gebir 
that  there  was  aroused  within  him 
"the  feverish  thirst  of  song";  but 
we  believe  that  poetry  was  not  to 
him,  as  it  is  to  one  inevitably  a  poet, 
the  very  water  of  life.  Indeed,  his 
reference  to  versification  as  a  pas- 
time would  of  itself  confirm  this  view. 
Nevertheless,  Gebir,  his  first  long 
poem,  is  remarkable  both  for  the 
vivid  force  of  imagination  dis- 
played, and  for  the  full  tones  of  its 
blank  verse.  As  a  whole,  the  poem 
is  a  magnificent  failure,  the  different 


68       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

parts  being  blocked  together  so  ab- 
ruptly that  it  is  wellnigh  impossiblej 
without  explanations,  to  get  a  satis- 
factory conception  of  the  ensemble. 
Landor's  admiration  for  Pindar,  and 
his  consequent  desire  to  be  "  as  com- 
pendious and  exclusive,"  led  him  to 
cart  off  so  many  loads  from  Gebir 
(as  he  expressed  it)  that  the  transi- 
tions in  the  plot  are  not  easy  to 
follow. 

Moreover,  the  plot  itself,  which  he 
took  from  a  tale  purporting  to  be 
Arabian,  and  which  has  for  its  idea 
to  reprimand  pride  of  conquest,  is 
somewhat  grotesque  and  improba- 
ble. Landor  thought  he  saw  in  it 
magnificum  quid  sub  crepuscnlo  au- 
tiquitatis ;  but  at  least  he  did  not 
succeed  in  adequately  conveying 
this  quality.  Indeed  the  parts  that 
deal  with  the  twilighted  region, 
where  the  natural  and  the  supernal 
converge  are,  to  our  mind  at  least, 


Landors  Poetry.  69 

the  weakest  in  the  poem.  Landor's 
real  strength  in  poetry,  as  he  him- 
self must  have  seen  later,  lay  in  a 
clear,  chaste,  objective  rendering  of 
the  sunny,  idyllic  life  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  associate  with  the 
Greeks,  and  which  Theocritus,  Bion, 
and  Moschus  have  rendered  im- 
mortally attractive  and  beautiful. 
And  his  most  characteristic  ideal,  ex- 
pressed in  the  poetic  prose  by  which 
Mr.  J.  A.  Symonds  describes  Greek 
life,  was  a  feast  of  "  perpetual  sun- 
shine and  perpetual  ease — no  work 
from  year  to  year  that  might  de- 
grade the  body  or  impair  the  mind, 
no  dread  of  hell,  no  yearning  after 
heaven,  but  summer-time  of  youth 
and  autumn  of  old  age,  and  loveless 
death  be-wept  and  bravely  borne." 
Landor  was  therefore  incompetent 
to  spiritualize  and  render  deeply 
symbolic  those  parts  of  his  poem 
which    deal    with    the    under   world 


jo      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

and  with  Masarian  Marthyr,  the  sor- 
ceress. Indeed,  Gcbir's  visit  to  the 
Shades  is  rendered  almost  ridiculous 
by  his  there  encountering,  despite 
the  anachronism,  the  Stuarts  and 
George  III.,  who  was  ever  Landor's 
detestation.  What  we  miss,  then,  in 
this  treatment  is  that  air  of  super- 
natural realism,  so  prominent  in 
another  poem,  which  appeared  the 
same  year,  the  Rhyme  of  the  An- 
cient Mariner.  Landor  is  either 
too  real  and  homely,  as  when  Mar- 
thyr, after  having  indulged  in  the 
most  outlandish  scenic  effects,  ex- 
claims to  Dalica  : 

"  Oh,  what  more  pleasant  than  the  short- 
breathed  sigh, 

When,  laying  down  your  burthen  at  the 
gate, 

And,  dizzy  with  long  wanderings,  you 
embrace 

The  cool  and  quiet  of  a  home-spun 
bed." 


Landors  Poetry.  7 1 

For  here  we  find  it  incompatible  with 
our  former  notion  of  the  terrible  sor- 
ceress, who  can  shrivel  in  one  breath 
the  bones  of  her  victims,  "  as  all  the 
sands  we  tread  on  could  not  in  a  thou- 
sand years,"  that  she  should  conde- 
scend to  the  cool  and  quiet  of  a 
home-spun  bed.  Or  else,  on  the 
other  hand,  Landor  fails  to  excite 
emotion,  because  his  horrors  are  too 
horrid  to  simulate  probability  even 
for  a  moment.  There  is,  therefore, 
not  that  perfect  blending  of  natural 
and  supernatural  elements  which 
arouses  our  sense  for  the  mysterious 
without  conflicting  with  our  sense  for 
the  probable. 

But  after  these  abatements  have 
been  made,  there  remain  passages,  as 
for  example  the  loves  of  Gebir  and 
Tamar,  and  the  nuptial  morning, 
which,  for  purity  of  outline,  incisive 
strokes,  and  at  one  time  graceful 
psychologic     touches,     at     another, 


72       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

strong,  majestic  lines,  would  bear 
comparison  with  portions  of  Keats' 
Hyperion,  and  would  justify  the  warm 
admiration  of  a  Shelley.  Tamar's 
narrative  of  his  encounter  with  the 
Nymph,  for  example,  which  contains 
the  noted  passage  on  the  sea-shell, 
has  all  the  directness  and  chaste  re- 
straint which  is  characteristic  of  the 
best  Greek  art.  And  while  the  pic- 
ture of  Charoba's  nuptial  morning 
may  suggest  somewhat  ignobly  the 
physical  side  of  her  passion  for  Gebir, 
yet  many  of  the  lines,  notably  those 
portraying  her  fears,  are  exquisitely 
handled. 

As  regards  the  technical  quality  of 
the  verse,  we  might  criticise  the 
unpleasant  iteration  of  syllables, 
sometimes  in  the  same  line,  as  "  Saw 
the  blood  7/mfttle  in  his  manly 
cheeks,"  also  the  tendency  to  awk- 
ward Latinized  phraseology,  as  "  Him 
overcome  her  serious  voice  bespake," 


Landors  Poetry.  y^ 

and  the  too  regular  beat  of  the  blank 
verse  ;  but  we  prefer  rather  to  admire 
the  frequent  felicity,  and,  at  times, 
the  grandeur  of  expression.  The 
following  is  worthy  to  stand  with 
the  introductory  lines  of  the  second 
book  of  Paradise  Lost,  as  a  splendid 
specimen  of  the  periodic  sentence  : 

"  Once  a  fair  city,  courted  then  by  kings, 
Mistress     of    nations,     thronged    by 

palaces, 
Raising  her  head  o'er  destiny,  her  face 
Glowing  with  pleasure  and  with  palms 

refreshed, 
Now    pointed  at  by    Wisdom    or    by 

Wealth, 
Bereft  of  beauty,  bare  of  ornament, 
Stood  in  the  wilderness  of  woe,  Masar." 

This  is  one  of  the  many  places  in 
Gebir  that  Shelley  never  tired  of  re- 
peating. 

But   notwithstanding  the  admira- 
tion of  a  few  select  spirits — Shelley, 


74       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

Southey,  Reginald  Heber,  De  Quin- 
cey,  and  perhaps  Coleridge, — Gebir 
fell  upon  the  general  public  a  dead 
failure.  Landor  was  not  honored  by 
the  vituperation  which  Wordsworth 
or  Keats  received,  yet  he  came  in 
for  his  modest  share  of  the  uncritical 
lashings  which  the  critics  of  his  day 
held  it  their  privilege  to  impose  upon 
a  new  and  original  author.  This  by 
no  means  destroyed  his  self-confi- 
dence, for  he  never  doubted  his  own 
ability,  he  only  doubted  whether 
others  could  be  made  to  recognize 
it ;  still,  applause  does  supplement 
and  strengthen  one's  consciousness 
of  merit  and  give  just  that  final 
impulse  which  is  needed  to  accom- 
plish great  things.  Landor  felt  this, 
and  wrote  to  Southey :  "  Thepopularis 
aura,  though  we  are  ashamed  or  un- 
able to  analyze  it,  is  requisite  for  the 
health  and  growth  of  genius ";  and 
again  he  wrote  in  his  high  and  mighty 


Landors  Poetry.  75 

way  :  "  I  confess  to  you,  if  even  fool- 
ish men  had  read  Gebir,  I  should 
have  continued  to  write  poetry, — 
there  is  something  of  summer  in  the 
hum  of  insects." 

As  it  was,  he  did  not  long  abstain 
from  versifying.  Indeed,  all  through 
his  life  he  was  accustomed  to  vow, 
after  some  frictio.i  with  public  or 
publishers,  that  he  would  never  again 
touch  pen  to  paper  ;  and  behold,  the 
very  next  day  would  find  him  at 
work  as  sedulously  as  ever,  produ- 
cing a  new  dialogue  or  poem.  Only 
two  years  after  the  publication  of 
Gebir,  Landor  had  got  out  a  little 
pamphlet  of  poems  from  the  Arabic 
and  Persian,  purporting  to  have 
been  rendered  from  a  French  trans- 
lation, and  garnished  with  elaborate 
notes,  which  Mr.  Colvin  thinks  were 
meant  to  mystify  the  reader.  These 
effusions  have  not  come  down  to  us. 
But   two  years  subsequent  to  this, 


j6      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

there  appeared  Clirysaor  and  the 
PJiocccaiis,  two  poems  which  are  still 
preserved  among  Landor's  collected 
works.  The  PJwcceans  is  painfully 
obscure,  an  unintelligible  fragment  ; 
but  Ckrysaor,  which  is  also  in  its 
general  drift  somewhat  puzzling, 
merits  more  attention.  It  has  for 
its  subject  an  incident  in  the  war 
between  the  Gods  and  Titans,  and 
thus  foreshadows,  as  has  been  sug- 
gested, the  Hyperion  of  Keats.  In- 
deed there  are  in  it  sounding  lines 
and  felicities  of  phrase  which  a 
Keats  need  not  have  been  ashamed 
to  own. 

"  The   azure   concave   of  their  curling 
shells  " 

is  surely  not  without  the  magic  of 
expression  which  we  so  much  admire 
in  the  author  of  Lamia,  and  the  Eve 
of  St.  Agnes.  And  in  general,  we 
may  claim  for  the  Chrysaor  that  as  a 


Landors  Poetry.  jj 

specimen  of  massive  blank  verse  it  is 
comparable  with  many  portions  of 
Gebir  and  Count  Julian,  partaking  of 
the  character  of  Landor's  early  grand 
style  as  distinguished  from  the  light 
graceful  manner  of  the  idyllic  poems, 
which  he  wrote  subsequently.  And 
Mr.  Colvin  goes  so  far  as  to  hold 
that  the  blank  verse  is  more  varied, 
and  therefore  finer,  than  the  regu- 
larly modulated  lines  of  Gebir. 

Notwithstanding  this  measure  of 
accomplishment  after  his  publication 
of  Gebir,  it  remains  true  that  Lan- 
dor's life  from  1798  to  about  1810 
was  desultory  and  unproductive,  this 
fact  being  perhaps  partially  due  to 
the  ill-success  of  his  epic.  How- 
ever, in  the  late  summer  of  the  latter 
year  he  began  a  tragedy,  Count  Ju- 
lian, which  he  completed  by  the  be- 
ginning of  the  next  spring.  The 
scene  of  this  drama  is  naturally  laid 
in    Spain,  a   country  then    exciting 


78       Walter  Savage  Landor. 

men's  minds  on  account  of  the  po- 
litical complications  which  had  arisen 
from  Napoleon's  infamous  efforts  to 
place  his  brother  Joseph  upon  the 
Spanish  throne — efforts  which  had 
resulted  in  the  sudden  uprising  of 
the  Spanish  people.  In  his  ardent 
sympathy  for  their  resistance  to  the 
French  despot,  Landor  had  gone  to 
Spain  in  1808,  offered  himself  as  a 
volunteer,  sent  to  the  government 
ten  thousand  reals  for  the  relief  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Venturada,  a  town 
destroyed  by  the  French,  and  prom- 
ised to  equip  and  lead  to  the  field 
troops  up  to  the  number  of  a  thou- 
sand. All  this  speaks  well  for  Lan- 
dor's  generous  soul.  And  while  his 
expedition  was  anything  but  a  success 
from  a  military  standpoint,  and  while, 
moreover,  his  evil  genius  of  pride  and 
precipitancy  managed  to  make  his 
experience  uncomfortable  by  flaring 
up  offensively  at  some  harmless  ex- 


Landor's  Poetry.  79 

pression  of  Stuart,  the  English  en- 
voy ;  still  Landor's  journey  was  not 
devoid  of  results,  for  the  knowledge 
of  Spain  thus  got  enabled  him  to 
impart  a  local  coloring  to  his  drama, 
which,  as  Southey  remarked  in  con- 
trasting it  with  his  own  Spanish  epic 
of  Roderick,  gave  Landor  an  ad- 
vantage. 

The  semi-legendary  history  of 
Spain  appears  to  have  excited  a 
strong  fascination  in  Landor's  mind  ; 
and  by  making  choice  of  that  grandly 
tragic  story,  wherein  Count  Julian, 
discovering  that  his  daughter  has 
been  outraged  by  King  Roderick, 
determines  to  give  over  his  native 
land  to  the  Moors,  whom  he  had 
just  before  defeated,  Landor  was  able 
to  construct  a  drama,  whose  charac- 
ters are  hewn  out,  naked  and  colossal 
as  the  Prometheus  of  ^Eschylus. 

By  thus  objectifying  desperate  and 
tremendous  emotions  in  imagery  so 


8o      \\raltcr  Savage  Landor. 

clear,  pregnant,  and  concise  that  the 
very  words  aim  to  be  as  distinct  and 
real  as  the  deeds  they  celebrate, 
Landor  was  following  the  highest 
Greek  models,  vEschylusand  Sopho- 
cles; but  by  reason  of  this  very 
loftiness  of  purpose,  he  must  needs 
pitch  his  theme  in  an  ideal  key,  which 
it  was  wellnigh  impossible  for  him 
to  sustain  without,  at  the  same  time, 
drowning  that  modest  volume  of 
homely  human  interest  requisite  to 
the  harmony  and  truth  of  the  whole. 
Hence,  if  we  would  justly  laud  a  sub- 
lime picture  like  that  which  Count 
Julian  draws  of  himself,  when  he 
stands  in  unutterable  misery  before 
the  ruined  Roderick — 

"  I  stand  abased  before  insulting  crime, 
I  falter  like  a  criminal  myself  ; 
The  hand  that  hurled  thy  chariot  o'er 

its  wheels, 
That  held  thy  steeds  erect  and  motion- 
less, 


Landor  s  Poetry.  8 1 

As  molten  statues  on  some  palace  gate, 
Shakes  as  with  palsied  age  before  thee 
now, — " 
a  picture  which  Southey  declared  to 
be  "  the  grandest  image  of  power  that 
ever  poet  produced ;  "    we  must    at 
the  same  time  recognize  that  such 
passages  lose  much  of   their  force, 
because  Landor  is  ever  striving  to 
maintain  a  too  continuous  level  of 
sublimity.      He  does  not  grasp  the 
magic    power   inhering   in    contrast. 
All  those  wonderful  means — a  droll 
by-play  of  wit   or  humor,  a  sudden 
dash  of  pathos — by  which  a  master 
like  Shakspeare  throws,  as  it  were  in 
high,  opposed  relief,  the  main  action 
of  the  story,  Landor  makes  little  use 
of.     And  hence,  though  he  tells  us 
that  he  lived  with  his  personages,  and 
entered  into  their  sorrows,  he  never 
quite    succeeds   in    creating  a    com- 
plete dramatic  illusion.     As  in  Sam- 
son    Agonistes,     the    softer    human 


82      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

touches,  which  should  finish  the  pic- 
ture, are  wanting ;  and  we  feel  that 
the  poet  has  not  attained  the  end  of 
his  art, — the  striking  of  a  perfect 
mean  between  the  sharply  defined 
individual  and  the  vague  type,  be- 
tween the  real  and  the  ideal.  But 
perhaps  an  even  stronger  reason  why 
the  human  element  is  not  effective 
lies  in  the  absence  of  a  well-sustained 
plot.  As  Landor  conceded,  the  play 
is  really  a  series  of  dramatic  dialogues, 
several  of  the  scenes  even  interrupt- 
ing, instead  of  furthering,  the  progress 
of  the  drama.  Furthermore,  on  the 
technical  side  of  the  dramatist's  art, 
the  studied  climaxes,  the  incidental 
explanations,  the  efforts  to  arouse  a 
sense  of  mystery,  of  surprise,  or  of  an- 
ticipation,— all  these  are  more  or  less 
disregarded. 

But  after  all  abatements  have  been 
made,  it  is  still  true  that,  in  Count 
Julian,  Landor   had    formed  a  new 


Landors  Poetry.  83 

and  magnificent  conception,  a  con- 
ception partaking  less  of  the  subtle 
complexity  of  the  modern  drama, 
and  more  of  the  simple  sublimity  of 
the  antique  tragedians, —  and  one 
which  he  sustained  with  marvellous 
power.  De  Quincey's  words  are  not 
far  above  the  mark  when  he  says : 
"  Mr.  Landor,  who  always  rises  with 
his  subject  and  dilates  like  Satan  into 
Teneriffe  or  Atlas,  when  he  sees  be- 
fore him  an  antagonist  worthy  of  his 
powers,  is  probably  the  one  man  in 
Europe  that  has  adequately  con- 
ceived the  situation,  the  stern  self- 
dependency,  and  the  monumental 
misery  of  Count  Julian.  That  sub- 
limity of  penitential  grief,  which 
cannot  accept  consolation  from  man, 
cannot  hear  external  reproach,  can- 
not condescend  to  notice  insult, 
cannot  so  much  as  see  the  curiosity 
of  bystanders;  that  awful  careless- 
ness of   all  but  the  troubled  deeps 


84      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

within  his  own  heart,  and  of  God's 
spirit  brooding  upon  their  surface 
and  searching  their  abysses,  never  was 
so  majestically  described."  More- 
over, there  are,  as  we  have  intimated, 
superb  passages  which  show  their 
full  splendor  only  when  detached  and 
read  by  themselves.  Take  the  first 
scene  of  the  fourth  act,  or  better, 
take  the  description  of  Count  Julian 
of  which  De  Quincey  was  thinking 
when  he  wrote  the  lines  quoted 
above : 

"  Not  victory  that  o'ershadows  him  sees 
he ; 

No  airy  and  light  passion  stirs  abroad, 

To  ruffle  or  to  soothe  him  ;  all  are 
quelled, 

Beneath  a  mightier,  sterner  stress  of 
mind  : 

Wakeful  he  sits,  and  lonely,  and  un- 
moved, 

Beyond  the  arrows,  views,  or  shouts 
of  men  ; 


Landors  Poetry.  85 

As  oftentimes  an  eagle,  ere  the  sun 
Throws    o'er   the   varying  earth   his 

early  ray, 
Stands  solitary,  stands  immovable 
Upon  some  highest  cliff,  and  rolls  his 

eye. 
Clear,    constant,    unobservant,    una- 

based, 
In  the  cold  light  above  the  dews  of 

morn." 

This  surely  has  Miltonic  majesty, 
and  yet  the  movement,  as  De  Quin- 
cey  acutely  suggested,  would  have 
been  amplified  and  deepened  if  Lan- 
dor  had  placed  the  line — "  Beyond 
the  arrows,  views,  or  shouts  of  men  " 
after  what  are  now  the  closing  words 
of  the  figure,  thus  making  it  refer 
directly  and  more  appropriately  to 
the  eagle,  and  at  the  same  time 
giving  an  added  depth  and  impres- 
siveness  to  the  close.  Landor  here, 
as  in  several  other  places,  just  comes 
short    of     "  the     solemn    planetary 


86      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

wheelings  "  which  characterize  the 
sustained  and  involved  harmonies  of 
Milton's  blank  verse. 

In  order  to  reach  some  final  de- 
cisions with  regard  to  Landor  as  a 
dramatist,  one  is  tempted  to  contrast 
him  with  the  greatest  of  Italian 
writers  of  tragedy,  Vittorio  Alfieri, 
whom  he  himself  always  desired  to 
resemble.  In  temperament  the  two 
men  had  points  in  common.  Both 
were  possessed  of  inflammable  na- 
tures, were  on  the  alert  to  take 
offence,  and  thunderous  in  their  an- 
ger. Both  had  the  qualities  of  the 
school-boy  —  quick  passions,  irra- 
tional prejudices,  and  a  somewhat 
immature  enthusiasm  for  liberators 
and  abhorrence  of  kings  and  tyrants 
— terms  which  to  them  were  synony- 
mous. There  are  even  superficial 
likenesses.  Both  were  of  good 
family  ;  both  lived  long  in  volun- 
tary exile  ;  both  detested  the  French 


La?idors  Poetry.  87 

nation.  And  as  dramatists,  the  two 
had  nearly  the  same  ideal,  though 
they  realized  it  somewhat  differ- 
ently. Abominating  the  romanti- 
cism which  mixes  figures  and  strains 
meanings  in  the  vain  effort  to  allego- 
rize— which  mystifies  but  does  not 
enlighten, — they,  on  the  contrary, 
aimed  to  express  in  clear  and  vigor- 
ous words  those  universal  emotions 
which  agitate  the  soul.  Their  char- 
acters, therefore,  are  not  highly 
complex  organisms,  like  Hamlet  or 
Faust,  but  are  rather  heroic  repre- 
sentations of  one  or  two  over-mas- 
tering passions.  They  come  upon 
the  stage,  say  distinctly  what  they 
feel — in  bold,  even  bald,  terms,  in 
the  case  of  Alfieri,  or  in  chaste  and 
limpid  imagery,  in  the  case  of  Lan- 
dor, — and  then  they  vanish.  The 
complicated  development  of  charac- 
ter, which  the  novelists,  especially, 
have   delighted   to   watch,  which    a 


88      Walter  Savage  Landor. 


.•> 


George  Eliot  has  portrayed  so  won- 
derfully   in    Tito    Melema,     is     not 
within  the   range   of  these  students 
of   the  antique.     In    Alfieri's  plays, 
in    particular,    there   are    no    subtle 
changes  of  purpose,  no  clash  of  con- 
flicting interests,  nothing  to  retard 
the  steady,  inevitable,  on-moving  of 
the  plot.     As    Mr.   Howells  has  re- 
marked   of    Alfieri's    best    tragedy : 
"  When  you  read   Orestes,  you  find 
yourself  attendant    upon    an    imma- 
nent   calamity,   which   nothing   can 
avert    or  delay.     In   a  solitude  like 
that  of  dreams,  those  hapless  phan- 
tasms,   dark   types    of    remorse,    of 
cruel    ambition,    of    inexorable    re- 
venge, move  swiftly  to  the  fatal  end. 
They  do    not   grow    or   develop  on 
the  imagination  ;    their  character  is 
stamped  at  once,  and  they  have  but 
to  act   it  out."     This  is  classicism. 
And   it  is  the  ideal  of  Alfieri  and 
Landor.     From  the  aspect  of  form 


Landors  Poetry.  89 

its  effects  are  finer  than  any  that 
romanticism  can  command.  There 
is  a  purity  of  outline,  an  incision  of 
idea,  which  may  not  tally  with  the 
exuberance  of  nature,  but  which  has, 
nevertheless,  the  invaluable  charm  of 
distinctness  and  finish.  Such  art 
may  be  selective,  and  at  the  same 
time  natural.  Yet,  as  we  have 
already  noticed,  this  sculptural 
method  tends  to  disregard  those 
picturesque  backgrounds  and  beau- 
tiful contrasts  and  definite  local  ref- 
erences which  are  the  life  of  the 
drama.  It  tends  to  become  as  clearly 
outlined  as  a  marble  statue,  and  as 
cold.  But  what  must  inevitably 
limit  Landor's  influence  as  a  drama- 
tist is  a  defect  which  he  had,  but 
which  Alfieri,  fortunately  for  his 
fame,  had  not.  Landor  was  not 
successful  in  attaining  the  ideal  of 
the  best  Greek  art.  He  did  not  duly 
subordinate  the  parts  to  the  whole. 


go      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

His  plan  is  ineffective  and  inade- 
quately sustained.  We  are  fascinated 
by  exquisite  passages,  but  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  get  a  general  impression  of 
the  whole  play.  The  separate  parts 
do  not  bind  our  interest  to  the 
development  of  some  central  idea. 
And  although  we  may  not  demand 
of  a  dramatist  an  exciting  plot,  we 
at  least  demand  that  he  shall  stimu- 
late our  imagination  by  suggesting  a 
definite  goal,  and  shall  all  the  while 
be  gradually  leading  us  toward  it. 
Notwithstanding  his  magnificent 
conception  of  Count  Julian,  this 
Landor  failed  to  do,  and  conse- 
quently Robert  Browning  was  right 
in  dedicating  his  Luria  and  The 
Soul's  Tragedy  to  Landor,  as  being 
"  a  great  dramatic  poet,"  rather  than 
a  great  dramatist. 

A  great  dramatist  Landor  never 
became,  although  he  composed  at 
least  five  other  tragedies  and  a  come- 


Landor  s  Poetry.  91 

dy.     One  of  the  former  he  seems  to 
have    written    in    181 1;    but    upon 
learning  that  Longmans  refused  to 
publish  Count  Julian,  either  at  their 
own,  or  even  at  his  expense,  Landor 
wrote  in  great  chagrin  and  exaspera- 
tion to  Southey  :   "  On  receiving  the 
last   letter  of  Mr.  Longman  I  com- 
mitted to  the   flames  my  tragedy  of 
Ferranti  and   Giulio,  with    which  I 
intended  to  surprise  you,  and  am  re- 
solved that  never  verse  of  mine  shall 
be  hereafter  committed  to  anything 
else."     This  storm  of  indignation,  as 
usual,  blew  over  rapidly  ;  and  Count 
Julian  was  soon  published   by  Mur- 
ray, though  only  a  few  fragments  of 
the  other  tragedy  had    been  saved. 
With  the  exception  of  the  Charita- 
ble Dowager,  a  prose  comedy,  which 
Landor  was   probably   wise   in   not 
printing,  he  produced  no  other  com- 
plete drama  for  years.     Count  Julian 
and  the  other  two   plays  mentioned 


92      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

above  were  written  at  Landor's  wild, 
beautiful  residence,  Llanthony  Ab- 
bey, in  Wales.  Subsequently,  on 
account  of  hostilities  and  financial 
difficulty  with  tenants  and  neighbors, 
Landor  had  been  forced  to  take  up 
his  abode  on  the  continent — first  at 
Tours,  then  at  Como,  Pisa,  and  at 
last  at  Florence.  He  had  finally, 
through  the  generous  advances  of 
Mr.  Ablett,  aWelsh  friend,  been  able, 
much  to  his  delight,  to  purchase  the 
Villa  Gherardescha,  an  exquisite 
place  situated  picturesquely  on  the 
road  which  ascends  from  Florence  to 
Fiesole.  And  it  was  while  at  Flor- 
ence or  at  the  Villa  Gherardescha 
that  Landor  accomplished  his  best 
work,  the  wonderful  prose  embodied 
in  the  Imaginary  Conversations,  the 
Examination  of  Shakspeare,  the 
Pentameron  and  the  Pericles  and 
Aspasia.  Not,  however,  until  he  had 
bid  farewell  to  his  beautiful   Italian 


Landors  Poetry.  93 

home,  and  had  taken  up  his  lonely- 
residence  at  Bath,  did  he  again  try 
his  hand  at  tragedy.  Here,  about 
thirty  years  after  the  composition  of 
Count  Julian  he  wrote  his  dramatic 
trilogy,  Andrea  of  Hungary,  Giovan- 
11a  of  Naples,  and  Fra  Rupert,  and 
also  his  Siege  of  Ancona.  Being 
laid  up  with  a  sprained  ankle,  he  con- 
ceived and  executed  the  first  of  these 
dramas  in  thirteen  days,  the  second 
and  third  were  not  long  in  following. 
Giovanna  of  Naples,  the  Italian 
Mary  Stuart,  who  by  her  tragic  sur- 
roundings and  fascinating  personality 
had  excited  Landor's  chivalrous  sus- 
ceptibilities, is  the  subject  of  the  tril- 
ogy. And  it  is  needless  to  say  that  she 
and  her  several  female  companions 
are  portrayed  with  that  subtle  insight 
into  all  that  is  gracious  and  devoted 
in  woman's  nature,  for  which  Landor 
has  been  so  justly  praised.  The  men 
are  not  as  successfully  handled  ;  yet 


94      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

the  conception  of  Andrea  of  Hun- 
gary, the  young  husband  of  Giovan- 
na,  bears  the  mark  of  a  true  artist's 
workmanship.  Andrea  shows,  what 
is  rare  in  Landor's  actors,  a  real  de- 
velopment of  character.  Brought 
up  under  the  guardianship  of  a  de- 
signing monk,  Fra  Rupert,  he  has 
been  purposely  allowed  to  remain  in 
idleness  and  ignorance,  like  Shaks- 
peare's  Orlando,  but  his  chivalrous 
soul,  under  the  kind  care  and  com- 
passion of  Giovanna,  is  made  to  re- 
alize itself,  by  becoming  attuned  to 
the  chords  of  love  and  gratitude. 

In  general,  these  plays — including 
the  Siege  of  Ancona,  which  in  manner 
most  resembles  Count  Julian,  being 
pitched  in  a  similarly  heroic  strain — 
possess  essentially  the  same  merits 
and  defects  as  Landor's  earlier  dra- 
matic works.  On  the  one  hand, 
there  is  not  that  effective  interaction 
of   characters    and    motives   which, 


Landors  Poetry.  95 

when  regarded  from  the  central  idea 
of  the  play,  constitutes  a  definite,  co- 
herent plot.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
possible  to  detach  incidents,  which, 
supposing  ourselves  acquainted  with 
the  merest  outline  of  the  story,  may 
be  viewed  as  independent  imaginary 
conversations,  and  as  such  are  full  of 
power.  Thus,  for  example,  the  scene 
in  the  Siege  of  Ancona,  wherein  the 
gentle  Lady  Malaspina,  pressing  her 
infant  to  her  bosom,  laments  the 
horrors  of  the  famine,  is  deeply,  nobly 
pathetic.  She  whispers  to  her  babe  : 
"  My  little  one  ! 

God  will  feed  thee  !  Be  sleep  thy  nour- 
isher 

Until  his  mercies  strengthen  me 
afresh  ! " 
And  when  the  soldier,  with  whom  she 
was  conversing,  has  hurried  away  to 
defend  the  Balista  Gate,  she  looks 
down  at  the  burden  in  her  arms,  and 
says : 


96      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

"  And  still  thou  sleepest,  my  sweet  babe  ! 

Is  death 
Like  sleep  ?    Ah,  who  then  would  fear 

to  die  ? 
How  beautiful  is  all  serenity  !  " 

Two  priests,  passing  by,  wonder 
whether  the  child  over  which  the 
woman  leans  is  dead.  The  one 
thinks  not,  because  she  weeps  not 
over  it  ;  the  other  rejoins  : 

"  For  that 
I  think  it  dead.     It  then  could  pierce 

no  more 
Her  tender  heart  with  its  sad  sobs  and 

cries." 

Only  a  few  moments  has  this  "ten- 
der heart"  to  grieve.  The  Lady  Mala- 
spina,  unable  to  resist  the  fatal  inroads 
of  hunger,  lies  dead  ;  and  the  babe 
still  peacefully  sleeps  on  her  bosom. 

In  the  same  general  style  as  these 
separate   scenes  from    Landor's    so- 


Landors  Poetry.  97 

called  dramas  are  the  innumerable 
short  dramatic  dialogues,  which  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  constructing  in 
verse,  as  well  as  in  prose,  throughout 
his  life.  These  animated  conversa- 
tions in  metrical  form  are  not  essen- 
tially different  from  his  prose  dia- 
logues of  action.  The  latter  are  as 
likely  to  be  beautifully  idealized  as 
the  former  ;  and  the  only  distinction 
between  the  two  classes,  is  the  com- 
paratively superficial  one  of  poetic 
instead  of  prose  expression.  It  is 
therefore  as  well  to  reserve  the  con- 
sideration of  Landor's  proficiency  in 
this  kind  of  work,  until  we  come  to 
notice  his  Imaginary  Conversations. 
Nevertheless,  there  are  one  or  two  of 
these  poetic  dialogues  which  for  their 
haunting  beauty  may  not  be  put  by. 
One  of  these  is  based  upon  an  ima- 
ginary encounter  of  Menelaus  with 
Helen,  after  the  fall  of  Troy.  An- 
other, which  Landor  afterwards  em- 


98      Waller  Savage  Laudor. 

bodied  in  the  Pericles  and  Aspasia 
relates  to  the  meeting  of  Agamem- 
non and  Iphigeneia  among  the 
Shades.  Of  this  latter,  Landor 
wrote : 

"  From  eve  to  morn,  from  morn  to  part- 
ing night, 

Father  and  daughter  stood  before  my 
sight. 

I  felt  the  looks  they  gave,  the  words 
they  said, 

And  reconducted  each  serener  shade. 

Ever  shall  these  to  me  be  well  spent 
days, 

Sweet  fell  the  tears  upon  them,  sweet 
the  praise  ; 

Far  from  the  footstool  of  the  tragic 
throne, 

I  am  tragedian  in  this  scene  alone." 

The  dramatic  conception  of  this 
meeting  inheres  in  the  peculiar  rela- 
tions which  subsist  between  father 
and  daughter.  Iphigeneia  had  been 
sacrificed    by   Agamemnon    on   the 


Landors  Poetry.  99 

outward  journey  to  Troy,  in  order  to 
propitiate  the  gods  ;  and  Agamem- 
non has  just  been  murdered  by  his 
adulterous  wife,  Clytemnestra.  Of 
this  foul  deed,  Iphigeneia  is  pro- 
foundly ignorant,  and  the  interest  of 
the  daughter  in  inquiring  about  the 
living,  and  especially  about  her 
mother,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
unexplained  grief  and  anger  of  Aga- 
memnon, constitute  the  dramatic 
motive — a  potent  one.  The  natu- 
ral criticism,  however,  to  be  passed 
upon  the  scene  is,  that,  while  Aga- 
memnon seems  gradually  to  be  pre- 
paring his  daughter  for  the  revelation 
of  his  tragic  death,  he  never  really 
does  tell  her.  Expectation  is  ex- 
cited by  his  exquisitely  managed  re- 
plies ;  but  no  climax  is  reached.  In 
reading  this  dialogue  the  acute  criti- 
cism of  Chateaubriand  with  regard 
to  the  pathetic  in  poetry  comes  to 
our   mind    as   especially  applicable. 


ioo      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

The  condition  of  father  and  daugh- 
ter is  truly  pathetic;  and  yet,  if  our 
tears  are  excited,  it  is  "  by  the 
beauty  of  the  poetry" — by  our  ad- 
miration rather  than  by  our  sorrow. 
Who  can  resist  the  beauty  of  these 
lines,  especially  the  Pindaric  grand- 
eur of  the  central  ones  on  Poseidon  : 

"  Father !    we   must   not  let   you  here 

condemn  ; 
Not,  were  the  day  less  joyful :  recollect 
We  have  no  wicked  here  ;  no  king  to 

judge. 
Poseidon,  we  have  heard,  with  bitter 

rage 
Lashes  his  foaming  steeds  against  the 

skies, 
And,    laughing    with     loud     yell     at 

winged  fire, 
Innoxious  to  his  fields  and  palaces, 
Affrights  the  eagle  from  the  sceptred 

hand  ; 
While  Pluto,  gentlest  brother  of  the 
three, 


Landors  Poetry.         101 

And    happiest    in     obedience,   views 

sedate 
His  tranquil  realm,  nor  envies  theirs 

above." 

Not  only  in  his  dramatic  pieces 
and  in  his  epic  has  Landor  shown 
himself  to  be  a  modest  master 
of  the  grand  in  poetry.  Two  noble 
odes,  one  to  Regeneration,  the  other 
to  Corinth,  at  least  in  places,  rise  to 
the  high-water  mark  of  his  poetic 
attainment.  The  first  half  of  the 
one  on  Regeneration,  which  cele- 
brates the  awakening  to  liberty  of 
Italy  and  Greece  in  the  year  1819,  is 
thrilling  in  its  enthusiasm.  It  begins 
with  the  magnificent  lines  : 

"We   are   what   suns,  and  winds,   and 
waters  make  us  ; 
The  mountains  are  our  sponsors,  and 

the  rills 
Fashion  and  win  their  nursling  with 
their  smiles." 


102      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

Certainly  no  evolutionary  phi- 
losopher has  ever  more  grandly 
proclaimed  the  influence  of  environ- 
ment!  A  few  lines  farther  on, 
Landor  laments  the  compromising 
attitude  which  England  has  taken 
toward  the  cause  of  freedom. 

"  Oh    thou    degenerate    Albion !     with 

what  shame 
Do  I   survey  thee,   pushing  forth  the 

sponge 
At  thy  spear's  length,  in  mocking  at 

the  thirst 
Of  holy  Freedom  in  his  agony." 

These  and  others  that  we  might 
quote  are  fine  lines;  yet  it  must  be 
confessed  that  in  this  ode,  as  in 
several  other  lofty  poems,  Landor  is 
apt  to  get  involved  in  the  meshes  of 
a  classical  reference,  and  to  break 
the  thread  of  passion  and  poetry  in 
explicating  his  figure. 

Besides   all    these   poetic  produc- 


Landor  s  Poetry.  103 

tions  in  the  grand  style,  or  in  a  style 
bordering  upon  the  grand,  Landor  ran 
up  and  down  the  gamut  of  the  lighter 
themes  of  verse.  Every  passing 
phase  of  his  experience,  from  the  in- 
vitation of  a  friend  to  dinner,  or  the 
celebration  of  a  loved  one's  charms, 
to  the  separation  from  his  family,  or 
the  death  of  a  companion,  offers  its 
appropriate  dash  of  color  to  the  pic- 
ture of  his  life.  Thus  his  transient 
moods  are  wrested  from  the  obliter- 
ating stream  of  consciousness,  and 
preserved  in  exquisite  eidyllia,  "  carv- 
ings, as  it  were,  on  ivory  or  on  gems." 
Many  of  these  are  erotic,  as,  for 
example,  those  in  eulogy  of  Ianthe, 
a  lady  whose  real  name  was  Sophia 
Jane  Swift,  and  whose  person  and 
character  Landor  all  his  life  con- 
tinued to  hold  In  honorable  admira- 
tion. What  could  be  nearer  to  the 
manner  of  Catullus,  and  at  the  same 
time    happier,    than     the    following 


1 04      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

tribute   to  this  lady's  sunny  disposi- 
tion : 

"  Your  pleasures  spring  like  daisies  in 

the  grass, 

Cut  down  and  up  again  as  blithe  as 

ever  ; 

From  you,  Ianthe,  little  troubles  pass, 

Like  little  ripples  in  a  sunny  river." 

Others  of  these  short  poems  are 
invocations  or  reminiscences  of  old 
familiar  objects,  with  little  incidents 
now  and  then  interwoven,  and  a  col- 
loquial turn  given  to  the  swiftly 
moving  iambics.  This  work  partakes 
of  the  style  of  Horace.  It  is  Epicu- 
rean in  implication,  yet  at  the  same 
time  healthy  and  clean.  There  is  a 
naivete  in  the  quick,  picturesque 
strokes  which  is  almost  irresistible. 
Again,  Landor  writes  addresses  to 
his  contemporaries,  in  the  way  of 
commendation  or  elegy.  There 
are    odes    to   Wordsworth     and   to 


Landors  Poetry.  105 

Southey.  In  a  poem  to  the  latter 
occurs  this  superb  stanza: 

"  Alas  !  that  snows  are  shed 
Upon  thy  laurelled  head, 
Hurtled    by    many    cares    and    many 
wrongs  ! 
Malignity  lets  none 
Approach  the  Delphic  throne  ; 
A  hundred   lane-fed   curs   bark   down 

Fame's  hundred  tongues. 
But  this  is  in  the  night  when  men  are  slow 
To  raise  their  eyes,  when  high  and  low, 
The  scarlet  and  the  colorless,  are  one  : 
Soon    Sleep    unbars    his    noiseless 

prison, 
And  active  minds  again  are  risen  ; 
Where  are  the  curs  ?  dream-bound  and 
whimpering  in  the  sun." 

In  this  ode,  however,  Landor  has 
spoiled  his  climax  by  not  recognizing 
that  nature  in  its  pristine  excellence 
should  be  chosen  as  imagery  rather 
than  the  machinery  of  literary  allu- 


106      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

sion.  Of  the  elegiac  pieces,  proba- 
bly the  most  perfect  is  the  one  writ- 
ten to  Mary  Lamb  on  the  death  of 
her  brother.  The  rhyme  and  rhythm 
of  the  stanzas  accord  completely 
with  the  sentiment ;  and  the  closing 
lines  show  Landor's  classic  mode  of 
expression,  his  clear  uninvolved 
manner : 

"  Behold  him  !  from  the  region   of  the 
blest, 
He  speaks  :  he  bids  thee  rest." 

Lines  like  these  suggest  those  beau- 
tiful funerary  vases,  whereon  the 
Greeks  were  wont  to  figure  the 
mourners  of  the  departed,  standing 
in  simple,  touching  attitudes,  with 
wreathes  in  their  hands. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  idyl,  the  last 
form  of  poetry  attempted  by  Lan- 
dor, that  we  discover  his  most  dis- 
tinctive poetic  contribution.  In  epic 
and  drama,  and  even    in    the   occa- 


Landor  s  Poetry.  107 

sional  pieces,  Landor  has  been  out- 
stripped by  poets  of  deeper  passion 
or  reflection  ;  but  in  his  best  idyllic 
work  he  has  few,  if  any,  superiors. 
Tennyson  and  Andre"  Ch£nier  come 
to  our  mind  as  possible  competitors. 
Yet  the  latter  had  not  Landor's 
classic  restraint  and  absolute  free- 
dom from  romanticism  ;  and  the  for- 
mer, in  his  wonderfully  beautiful 
Idyls  of  the  King,  illustrates  what 
the  French  critic  calls  simplesse 
rather  than  real  simplicity. 

A  number  of  these  idyls  had  origi- 
nally appeared  in  Landor's Idyllia  He- 
roica,  in  Latin,  he  having  continued 
for  years  to  hide  away  from  popular 
appreciation  interesting  prose  and 
verse  by  reason  of  his  scholarly,  and 
at  the  same  time  schoolboyish,  pref- 
erence for  the  language  of  ancient 
Rome  over  his  native  tongue.  But 
at  last,  at  the  request  of  Lady  Bless- 
ington,  Landor  agreed   to  translate 


108      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

these  pieces  into  English.  And  as 
the  outcome  we  have  his  Hellenics. 
Of  all  his  poetic  achievements,  these 
best  exhibit  what  is  usually  treated 
as  the  characteristic  note  of  Greek 
art — the  note  of  objectivity.  Philo- 
sophically speaking,  this  epithet, 
when  applied  to  an  artist,  conveys 
the  idea  that  he  has  succeeded  in 
great  measure  in  detaching  his  own 
subjective  interpretation  of  an  object 
from  his  observation  and  portrayal 
of  it  ;  that  he  has  seen  and  repre- 
sented the  thing  as  it  is,  without 
trying  to  suggest  any  double  mean- 
ing, any  idea  of  which  the  cor- 
responding thing  is,  in  Platonic 
phase,  an  adumbration.  The  liquid 
clearness  which  results  from  this  ob- 
jective treatment  is  the  distinctive 
mark  of  classicism.  And  it  is  in  the 
Hellenics  that  Landor  expresses  this 
quality  pre-eminently.  At  the  same 
time  it   must  not  be  inferred,  con- 


Landors  Poetry.         109 

cerning  this  kind  of  art,  that  the 
artist  seeks  purposely  to  eliminate 
himself  and  his  ideals  from  the  ob- 
jects of  his  imagination.  It  the 
rather  arises  from  an  inability  or  dis- 
inclination on  the  part  of  the  poet 
to  distinguish  between  nature  and 
spirit.  As  a  consequence,  he  does 
not  swathe  the  body  of  sensuous 
images,  floating  on  the  verge  of  his 
imagination,  in  the  bands  of  some 
preconceived  order  of  intellectual- 
ized  forms.  His  soul  is  a  trans- 
parent mirror  reflecting  a  series  of 
refined  sensations.  And  he  is  so 
keenly  alive  to  them,  that  he  is 
ready  to  believe  the  very  rocks  are 
alive  too,  and  share  in  the  universal 
joys  of  existence.  Hence  Mr.  Forster 
is  quite  right  in  saying,  that  Landor 
reproduces  "  the  time  of  light,  clear, 
definite  sensation  ;  when,  to  every 
man,  the  shapes  of  nature  were  but 
the    reflection    of    his   own ;    when 


1 1  o      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

marvels  were  not  explained  but  be- 
lieved, and  the  supernatural  was  not 
higher  than  the  natural,  or  indeed 
other  than  a  different  development 
of  the  attributes  and  powers  of 
nature." 

Among  the  many  fine  mythologic 
themes  which  compose  the  Hellen- 
ics, the  finest,  the  most  delightfully 
objective,  is  the  Hamadryad,  a  poem 
written  in  Landor's  seventieth  year. 
This  idyl  perused  on  a  fine  day  in 
summer,  in  some  leafy  mountain 
nook,  might  almost  lead  the  reader, 
his  senses  being  attuned  to  the  gentle 
pulsations  of  its  verse,  to  fancy  that 
he  saw,  seated  there 

"  Upon  the  moss  below,  with  her  two 

palms 
Pressing   it  on    each  side,  a  maid  in 

form," — 
a  veritable  Hamadryad.     And  if  his 
mind's  eye  did   not,  in  the  course  of 
his  reading,  bring  out  a  series  of  the 


Landors  Poetry.  1 1 1 

most  fascinating  little  pictures,  paint- 
ed in  strokes  fascinatingly  clear  and 
delicate,  this  reader  must  forsooth  be 
of  dull  wits,  a  dry  literalist,  dreamless 
and  imaginationless.  Indeed,  this 
poem  of  Landor's  mature  old  age  is 
above  analysis.  Each  image  is  struck 
off  with  an  idealized  realism  and  a 
winning  yet  incisive  grace,  which 
make  common  adjectives  seem  nig- 
gardly. There  are  little  touches  of 
characterization,  little  gnomic  ex- 
pressions on  the  part  of  the  speakers, 
which  could  not  be  bettered.  What 
could  be  more  naively  feminine  than 
this  : 

"  Rhoicos  went  daily  ;  but  the  nymph 

as  oft, 
Invisible.     To  play  at  love,  she  knew, 
Stopping     its     breathings     when     it 

breathes  most  soft, 
Is  sweeter  than  to  play  on  any  pipe. 
She  played  on  his  ;  she  fed  upon  his 

sighs  ; 


1 1 2      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

They  pleased   her  when  they    gently 

waved  her  hair, 
Cooling  the  pulses  of  her  purple  veins, 
And  when  her  absence  brought  them 

out,  they  pleased." 

Even  these  few  lines,  however,  give 
one  an  idea  of  the  condensation  of 
Landor's  style.  He  is  so  sparing  of 
words  that  it  is  not  always  easy  to 
tell  what  his  possessive  pronouns 
modify.  He  is  not  without  faults 
also  in  his  management  of  blank 
verse  :  instead  of  keeping  his  lines 
relatively  entities,  he  often  ends  them 
with  a  preposition  or  adjective,  either 
of  which  is  carelessly  related  to  a 
noun  in  the  succeeding  line.  Not- 
withstanding this,  many  of  the  Hel- 
lenics are  typical  examples  of  that 
form  of  poetry  which  is  of  the  senses, 
and  is  yet  pure,  clean,  and  beautiful. 
Fitly  to  close  our  review  of  the 
idyllic  poems,  and  of  Landor's  poe- 
try in   general,  we  shall   quote  a  few 


Landor's  Poetry.  1 1 3 

lines  from  the  Fiesolan  Idyl,  which 
will  bring  before  us  our  author  him- 
self, giving  us  a  glimpse  of  the  gen- 
tler side  of  his  nature — the  side  which, 
in  contrasting  it  with  Landor's  ve- 
hement outbursts  of  temper,  Leigh 
Hunt  likened  to  such  a  contradiction 
in  nature  as  the  blossoming  of  lilies 
from  a  stormy  mountain  pine.  The 
close  of  this  poem  is  open  to  quota- 
tion for  its  delicate,  psychological 
perception ;  but  it  is  the  central 
lines,  which  tell  of  Landor's  love  of 
flowers,  that  we  especially  desire  to 
transcribe. 

"  And 't  is  and  ever  was  my  wish  and  way 
To  let  all  flowers  live  freely,  and  all  die 
(Whene'er  their  genius  bids  their  souls 

depart) 
Among  their  kindred  in  their  native 

place. 
I  never  pluck  the  rose  ;  the  violet's  head 
Hath  shaken  with  my  breath  upon  its 

bank 


1 1 4      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

And   not   reproached    me ;    the    ever 

sacred  cup 
Of  the  pure    lily  hath,    between   my 

hands,  - 
Felt  safe,  unsoiled,  nor  lost  one  grain  of 

gold." 

And  now  with  these  lines  still  be- 
fore us  as  fair  specimens  of  what 
Landor  could  do  in  the  way  of  verse, 
we  come  to  ask  ourselves,  What  in 
general  are  the  elements  of  power  in 
his  poetry  ?  He  himself  has  given  a 
touchstone  by  which  to  test  his  own 
performance.  "  What  is  there  in 
poetry,"  he  makes  Boccaccio  say, 
"  unless  there  be  moderation  and 
composure  ?  are  they  not  better  than 
the  hot,  uncontrollable  harlotry  of  a 
flaunting,  dishevelled  enthusiasm  ? 
Whoever  has  the  power  of  creating, 
has  likewise  the  inferior  power  of 
keeping  his  creations  in  order.  The 
best  poets  are  the  most  impressive, 
because  their  steps  are  regular  ;  for 


Landors  Poetry.  1 1 5 

without  regularity  there  is  neither 
strength  nor  state."  And  again,  he 
puts  in  the  mouth  of  Aspasia  the 
following:  "For  any  high  or  any 
wide  operation,  a  poet  must  be  en- 
dued, not  with  passion  indeed,  but 
with  the  power  and  mastery  over  it." 
Now  it  is  acknowledged  that  Lan- 
dor's  effort  after  moderation  and 
composure,  and  the  regularity  which 
should  result  from  them,  has  its  frui- 
tion in  his  poetry.  He  was  able  to 
strike  off  ideas  in  a  singularly  vivid, 
imaginative  way,  without  burdening 
them  with  accessory  touches,  which 
would  obscure  their  meaning.  Doubt- 
less he  has  also  the  power  and  mas- 
tery over  passion — when  the  passion 
is  there  !  but  his  very  fault  consists 
in  a  lack  of  that  tense  enthusiasm 
and  sweeping  passion,  which  are  the 
attributes  of  great  poets.  His  ideal 
was  more  like  that  of  Wordsworth, 
"  emotion    remembered  in   tranquil- 


1 1 6      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

lity  ";  but  then  he  was  not  endowed 
with  the  the  deeply  reflective  percep- 
tion which  constitutes  the  glory  of 
Wordsworth.     Landor  has  too  little 
of  the  transcendentalist  about  him, 
too  little  of  the   insight  that  pene- 
trates below  the  show  of  things,  to 
possess  the  power  of  entering  into 
the  inner  life  of  nature  and  thought. 
This  very  fact  must  forever  exclude 
him  from  a  place  among  the  poets  of 
the  front  rank.     He  may  have  had 
a  modest  share    of    what    Matthew 
Arnold  calls  "  natural  magic";    but, 
barring  the  really  sublime  conception 
of  Count  Julian,  he  was  practically 
devoid  of  "  moral  profundity."  Hence 
his  position  and  influence  as  a  poet, 
like  that  of  the  aesthetic   school  of 
Mr.  Swinburne  and  his  compeers— 
who  in  a  sense  recognize  themselves 
as  Landor's  disciples, — must  always 
remain  circumscribed.     As  Heinrich 
Heine  once  said  :  "  Deeds  are  the  off- 


Landors  Poetry.  1 1 7 

spring  of  words  ;  but  Goethe's  pretty 
words  are  childless.  That  is  the 
curse  upon  what  has  originated  in 
mere  art."  And  that  is  the  curse 
which  falls  upon  much  of  Landor's 
poetry. 


III. 

LANDOR'S  PROSE  WRITINGS. 


ng 


III. 

LANDOR'S  PROSE  WRITINGS. 

Falling  in  with  the  universal  im- 
pulse of  our  day,  the  tendency  to 
trace  derivations,  we  would  find  it 
interesting,  were  it  possible,  to  study 
the  development  of  Landor's  prose. 
Certainly  a  style  of  such  singular  ex- 
cellence could  not  have  been  reached 
without  many  tentative  efforts.  In- 
deed Forster  has  preserved  to  us  in 
his  Biography  a  letter  of  Landor's  to 
Dr.  Parr  which  shows  the  stilted 
manner  of  eighteenth-century  "  epis- 
tolary correspondence,"  and  which  is 
of  course  in  marked  contrast  to  the 
sanity  and  naturalness  which  Landor 
attained    in    his     published     prose. 

121 


12  2      Walter  Savage  Landor. 


V3 


The  letter  begins:  "I  am  rejoiced  to 
find  that  you  have  not  forgotten  me, 
and  I  raise  myself  up  from  the  bosom 
of  indifference  to  the  voice  and  the 
blandishments  of  praise."  We  look 
in  vain  for  such  bombast  in  Landor's 
later  writing,  though  all  through  his 
life  we  find  him  inclined  to  slip  into 
a  mode  of  expression  which  is  de- 
clamatory and  somewhat  Johnson- 
ese. An  actual  descent  into  the  false 
sublime,  however,  is  restricted  to  the 
political  dialogues  and  pamphlets, 
which  he  ever  and  anon  felt  con- 
strained to  cast  upon  the  troubled 
waters  of  civil  contention.  These, 
so  far  as  we  are  acquainted  with 
them,  are  worthy  of  his  prejudices 
rather  than  his  powers.  Yet  it  should 
be  said  that  one  often  runs  across 
sentences,  in  the  midst  of  diatribes 
against  priests  and  kings,  which  for 
rhetorical  splendor  are  unsurpassed 
and    unsurpassable.      And    it   must 


Landors  Prose  Writings.  123 

also  be  said  that  Landor's  opposition 
to  war,  and  enthusiasm  for  freedom 
justly  challenge  our  admiration  and 
adherence — at  least  in  their  general 
conception,  if  not  in  their  Landorian 
applications. 

Omitting  the  consideration  of  Lan- 
dor's political  writings,  and  of  his 
pleas  for  spelling-reform,  which  were 
generally  unheeded;  of  his  occasional 
essays  in  criticism,  which,  with  the 
exception  of  three  refined  textual 
studies  of  Theocritus,  Catullus,  and 
Petrarch,  have  not  come  down  to  us  ; 
and  of  his  Latin  works,  which  we 
would  scarcely  have  the  temerity  to 
criticise,  even  were  they  perfectly 
preserved, — we  have  remaining  four 
great  monuments  in  prose,  the 
Imaginary  Conversations,  the  Citation 
a?td  Examination  of  William  SJiak- 
speare,  the  Pentameron,  and  the  Peri- 
cles and  A  spasm. 

It  was  after  Landor  had    gotten 


124      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

comfortably  established  in  Italy  that 
he  wrote,  between  the  years  1821 
and  1829,  the  major  part  of  the  first 
of  these  works.  His  inclination  had 
always  been  toward  this  mode  of  ex- 
pression. Twenty  years  before,  he 
had  offered  to  the  Morning  Chronicle, 
the  organ  of  the  Whigs,  among  whom 
he  then  counted  himself  an  unbiassed 
exponent,  a  dialogue  between  Burke 
and  Grenville.  This  had  not  been 
accepted,  and  he  does  not  appear  to 
have  made  many  more  attempts  at 
this  kind  of  writing  until  after  he  had 
taken  up  his  abode  in  Florence  in 
the  fall  of  1821.  Landor's  concrete 
way  of  looking  at  things,  his  ready 
enthusiasm  for  persons  embodying 
certain  sentiments  and  ideas,  rather 
than  for  the  abstract,  logical  presenta- 
tion of  these  ideas  and  sentiments, 
made  the  dialogue  his  natural  literary 
element.  He  was  almost  as  much  of 
a  hero-worshipper  as  Carlyle.     The 


Landors  Prose  Writings.    125 

Hegelian  conception  of  a  collective, 
or  rather  of  an  organic,  humanity 
advancing  from  age  to  age,  at  one 
time  with  halting  step,  at  another 
with  assurance  and  courage,  toward 
the  more  perfect  realization  of  the 
divine  idea,  would  have  seemed  to 
him  but  a  mystical  ideal  for  one  to 
set  before  all  thoughtful  men  as  the 
goal  toward  which  they  must  strive, 
yea,  even  agonize.  It  would  indeed 
have  been  well  if  the  following  mag- 
nificent words  written  by  Mazzini 
had  been  pondered  by  these  intense 
individualists,  Carlyle  and  Landor : 
"  There  is  something  greater,  more 
divinely  mysterious,  than  all  the 
great  men — and  that  is  the  human 
race  which  includesthem,thethought 
of  God  which  stirs  within  them,  and 
which  the  whole  human  race  collec- 
tively can  alone  accomplish.  Disown 
not,  then,  the  common  mother  for 
the  sake  of  certain   of  her  children, 


126      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

however  privileged  they  may  be  ;  for 
at  the  same  time  that  you  disown 
her,  you  will  lose  the  true  compre- 
hension of  these  rare  men  whom  you 
admire.  .  .  .  The  inspiration  of 
genius  belongs  one  half  to  heaven, 
the  other  to  the  crowd  of  common 
mortals  from  whose  life  it  springs." 
Such  a  conception  of  the  solidarity 
and  interconnection  of  the  race, 
coupled  with  the  idea  of  a  God  in 
and  at  the  same  time  above  hu- 
manity, might  well  arouse  our  aspira- 
tions and  our  efforts.  And  it  is  far 
removed  from  the  Comtean  view 
which,  instead  of  recognizing  God  as 
working  in  humanity  and  yet  above 
it,  identifies,  by  a  debasing  anthro- 
pomorphism, the  idea  of  Deity  with 
the  notion  of  collective  man,  and 
thus  gives  the  sanction  of  divin- 
ity to  mere  numbers;  whereas  it  is 
indeed  difficult  to  see  how,  if  indi- 
vidual  man   be   not   God-born,   hu- 


Landors  Prose  Writings.   127 

manity,  or  collective  man,  can  possess 
this  attribute.  The  whole  cannot  be 
different  from  its  parts  ;  and  if  the 
individual  be  without  God  in  the 
world,  even  so  must  be  the  race. 
These  high  ideas,  however,  were  not 
within  Landor's  range  of  thought. 
An  admiration  for  individual  traits 
was  the  mainspring  in  his  theory  of 
life.  He  quotes  enthusiastically,  in 
one  of  his  letters,  the  following  lines 
from  the  Life  of  Blanco  White,  which 
adequately  sum  up  his  own  philoso- 
phy:  "The  moral  world  presents 
upon  the  whole  a  most  hideous  and 
distorted  appearance.  But  it  hap- 
pens here,  as  in  some  pictures. 
Looked  at  with  the  naked  eye,  they 
are  a  perfect  mass  of  confusion  ; 
but  the  moment  you  look  through 
a  lens  constructed  to  unite  the 
scattered  lines  in  a  proper  focus, 
they  show  a  regularity,  and  even 
beauty.      My  favorite  lens  is  a  vir- 


1 28      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

tuous  man  ;  it  brings  into  harmony 
the  discordant  parts  of  the  moral 
world." 

For  the  representation,  in  imagi- 
nary conversations,  of  the  virtuous 
and  the  wise  of  the  past,  Landor  was, 
moreover,  especially  fitted  by  his 
general  intellectual  make-up.  In- 
consecutiveness,  which  in  other  forms 
of  prose  would  be  counted  a  fault,  is 
unobjectionable  in  the  dialogue,  if 
kept  within  the  large,  embracing 
unity  of  a  central  thought.  And  the 
opportunity,  by  virtue  of  the  free- 
dom and  informality  of  conversation, 
to  give  vent  to  extravagant  ideas 
peculiar  to  the  author  is  likewise 
made  possible.  This  is  a  concession 
important  to  a  writer  possessed  of 
Landor's  impetuous  individuality. 
So  that,  when  speaking  in  the  person 
of  another,  he  could  in  reality  ex- 
press his  own  idiosyncrasies  more 
freely  than  if  he  had  chosen  to  write 


Landors  Prose  Writings.   1 29 

in    propria    persona     through     the 
medium  of  essay  or  treatise. 

Landor    availed    himself    of    this 
license  even  to  the   choice  of  sub- 
jects, taking  his  characters  indiscrim- 
inately from  many  nationalities  and 
many  ages ;  so  that  it  is  not  easy  to 
establish  a  classification  of  the  dia- 
logues, with  the  divisions  complete 
and  mutually  exclusive.      The  best 
arrangement  that  has  been  suggested 
is  by  Mr.  Colvin,  who  distinguishes 
between  the  dramatic  and  the  non- 
dramatic  conversations.      This  is  cer- 
tainly a  philosophic  demarcation,  and 
one  which  can  be  applied  with  some 
degree   of  exactitude.      We  would, 
however,  prefer  to  employ  the  posi- 
tive terms,  reflective  and  dramatic, 
in    discriminating  between  the  two 
classes. 

The  dialogues  of  reflection  are 
usually  long,  not  always  easy  to 
read  through  without  weariness,  yet 


1 30      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

abound  in  original  and  penetrating 
aphorisms  couched  in  strikingly  beau- 
tiful imagery.  There  are,  however, 
two  vital  defects  in  the  reflective  class, 
which,  if  they  do  not  lower  the  high 
value  of  selections  from  the  conver- 
sations, do  certainly  modify  our  ap- 
preciation of  them  as  wholes.  The 
first  of  these  defects  may  be  seen 
by  contrasting  Landor  with  Plato. 
Emerson  truly  says :  "  Plato  turns 
incessantly  the  obverse  and  the 
reverse  of  the  medal  of  Jove." 
By  this  he  primarily  meant  that  Plato 
had  the  abstract  speculative  genius 
of  the  Oriental  coupled  with  the  love 
of  the  accomplished  fact  which  char- 
acterizes our  Western  mind  ;  but  he 
also  meant  to  infer  that  in  the  dia- 
logues Plato  saw  both  sides  of  a 
question,  so  that  his  speakers  could 
always  give  the  cons  as  well  as  the 
pros.  This  versatility  Landor's  char- 
acters do  not  possess.     Our  author 


Landors  Prose  Writings.    1 3 1 

is  not  proficient  in  the  play  of  re- 
partee, which  really  constitutes  the 
life  of  the  dialogue.  Timotheus  or 
Calvin  are  the  mere  targets  at  which 
Lucian  or  Melancthon  level  their 
controversial  guns.  And  the  poor 
targets  become  thoroughly  riddled 
before  the  conversations  are  over. 
The  sense  of  friction,  of  clash,  which 
should  sustain  our  flagging  interest, 
is  conspicuously  absent.  And,  conse- 
quently, our  wits  are  not  aroused  to 
a  fascinated  play  of  thought,  and 
our  attention  begins  to  wane. 

The  other  defect,  which  is  fully  as 
serious,  arises  from  the  lack  of  or- 
ganic unity  in  the  several  conversa- 
tions. We  do  not,  of  course,  mean 
that  Landor  should  have  analytically 
plotted  out  a  dialogue,  as  one  would 
divide  a  treatise,  making  the  various 
parts  depend  explicitly  and  obviously 
upon  some  central  conception.  Such 
a  design  would  have  stopped  the  flow 


132      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

of  imagination,  and  have  rendered 
the  speeches  stilted  and  unreal.  But 
we  do  mean  that  Landor  should 
himself  have  known  whither  he  was 
leading  us,  and  that  the  meandering 
paths  of  thought  should  have  at  last 
opened  out  upon  some  central  pros- 
pect, whence  we  might  look  down 
and  discover  the  way  we  had  come. 
Landor  should  have  recognized  that 
a  vast  body  of  aphorisms  and  fine 
thoughts,  and  also,  it  must  be  ac- 
knowledged, of  tedious  disquisitions, 
must  collapse  into  an  incoherent 
mass  if  they  be  not  sustained  by  the 
skeleton  of  an  underlying  idea.  That 
he  did  not  recognize  this  fact  is  seen 
from  his  own  figurative  account  of 
his  mode  of  composing  the  dialogues. 
"  I  confess  to  you,"  he  says,  "  that  a 
few  detached  thoughts  and  images 
have  always  been  the  beginnings  of 
my  works.  Narrow  slips  have  risen 
up,  more   or   fewer,  above  the  sur- 


Landors  Prose  Writings.   133 

face.  These  gradually  became  larger 
and  more  consolidated  ;  freshness 
and  verdure  first  covered  one  part, 
then  another;  then  plants  of  firmer 
and  higher  growth,  however  scantily, 
took  their  places,  then  extended 
their  roots  and  branches;  and  among 
them,  and  around  about  them,  in  a 
little  while  you  yourself,  and  as  many 
more  as  I  desired,  found  places  for 
study  and  recreation."  Thus,  instead 
of  constructing  each  of  these  conver- 
sations after  the  model  of  a  tree,  Lan- 
dor  has  chosen  to  make  each  repre- 
sent a  whole  tangled  forest  of  oaks 
and  underbrush.  A  true  dialogue, 
like  a  true  poem,  should  contain 
within  itself,  not  openly,  but  in  im- 
plication, a  thoroughly  thought-out 
plan.  This  Landor  failed  to  see, 
and  hence  fell  short  of  the  ideal 
requirements. 

But  after  we  have  made  all  our  ad- 
missions, it  must  still  be  allowed  that 


1 34      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

these  conversations  contain — as  Lan- 
dor himself  declared,  when  his  exas- 
peration was  excited  by  difficulties  in 
publishing  them — "  as  forcible  writ- 
ing as  exists  on  earth."  Not  only 
are  they  forcible  ;  many  of  them  are 
pervaded  by  a  spirit  of  beauty  that  is 
rarely  attained.  Take  the  dialogue 
between  Epicurus  and  his  two  lovely 
pupils,  Leontion  and  Ternissa.  The 
Epicureanism,  which  would  environ 
us  amid  delightful  sights  and  sounds 
and  would  thus  gently  withdraw 
our  souls  away  from  the  din  of  the 
crowd  into  the  peace  of  self-culture 
and  self-satisfaction,  was  never  more 
alluringly  set  forth.  "  Oh,  sweet 
sea-air!  how  bland  art  thou,  and 
refreshing  !  breathe  upon  Leontion  ! 
breathe  upon  Ternissa  !  bring  them 
health  and  spirits  and  serenity,  many 
springs  and  many  summers,  and  when 
the  vine-leaves  have  reddened  and 
rustle  under  their  feet.     These,  my 


Landors  Prose  Writings.   135 

beloved  girls,  are  the  children  of 
Eternity.  They  played  around  The- 
seus and  the  beauteous  Amazon;  they 
gave  to  Pallas  the  bloom  of  Venus, 
and  to  Venus  the  animation  of  Pal- 
las. Is  it  not  better  to  enjoy  by  the 
hour  their  soft  salubrious  influence, 
than  to  catch  by  fits  the  rancid  breath 
of  demagogues  ;  than  to  swell  and 
move  under  it  without  or  against  our 
will ;  than  to  acquire  the  semblance 
of  eloquence  by  the  bitterness  of 
passion,  the  tone  of  philosophy  by 
disappointment,  or  the  credit  of 
prudence  by  distrust?  Can  fortune, 
can  industry,  can  desert  itself,  bestow 
on  us  anything  we  have  not  here?  " 

Again,  take  the  conversation  be- 
tween Vittoria  Colonna  and  Michael 
Angelo,  wherein  they  discuss  the 
qualities  of  poetry  and  the  glory  of 
the  Greeks.  How  acute  and  true 
are  the  following  aphorisms :  "  The 
beautiful  in  itself  is  useful  by  awak- 


136      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

ening  our  finer  sensibilities,  which  it 
must  be  our  own  fault  if  we  do  not 
carry  with  us  into  action." — "  Wishes 
are  by-paths  on  the  declivity  to  un- 
happiness ;  the  weaker  terminate  in 
the  sterile  sand,  the  stronger  in 
the  vale  of  tears." — "  Serenity  is  no 
sign  of  security.  A  stream  is  never 
so  smooth,  equable,  and  silvery,  as  at 
the  instant  before  it  becomes  a  cata- 
ract. The  children  of  Niobe  fell  by 
the  arrows  of  Diana  under  a  bright 
and  cloudless  sky." — "Little  minds 
in  high  places  are  the  worst  impedi- 
ments to  great.  Chestnuts  and  es- 
culent oaks  permit  the  traveller  to 
pass  onward  under  them  ;  briars  and 
thorns  and  unthrifty  grass  entangle 
him."  The  last  two  quotations  give 
the  mechanism  of  Landor's  prose — 
first  the  simple  statement  of  an  idea, 
then  a  metaphor  illustrative  of  it. 

Two  of  the  most  suggestive  of  the 
reflective     dialogues    have    already 


Landors  Prose  Writings.    137 

been  mentioned  in  another  connec- 
tion, those  between  Lucian  and 
Timotheus,  and  Calvin  and  Melanc- 
thon.  These  illustrate  what  we  have 
called  Landor's  religious  positivism. 
In  the  former,  the  pagan  satirist, 
who  is  Landor  himself  in  thin  dis- 
guise, gets  the  better  of  his  cousin, 
the  Christian  Timotheus,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  argument  gives  expres- 
sion to  this  characteristic  remark : 
"  We  are  upon  earth  to  learn  what 
can  be  learnt  upon  earth,  and  not  to 
speculate  on  what  never  can  be  .  .  . 
Let  men  learn  what  benefits  men  ; 
above  all  things,  to  contract  their 
wishes,  to  calm  their  passions,  and, 
more  especially,  to  dispel  their  fears. 
Now  they  are  to  be  dispelled,  not  by 
collecting  clouds,  but  by  piercing 
and  scattering  them.  In  the  dark 
we  may  imagine  depths  and  heights 
immeasurable,  which,  if  a  torch  be 
carried    right    before  us,   we  find  it 


138      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

easy  to  leap  across.  Much  of  what 
we  call  sublime  is  only  the  residue  of 
infancy,  and  the  worst  of  it."  It  is 
curious  that  Kant  is  reported  to 
have  expressed  the  same  idea  as  is 
contained  in  the  last  two  sentences, 
in  reference  to  the  poetry  of  Isaiah 
and  Ossian.  Both  men,  as  rational- 
ists, were  constitutionally  unable  to 
realize  that  the  profound  synthetic 
intuitions  of  the  poet  are  sublime, 
not  because  of  an  obscurity  which 
is  incident  to  human  limitations,  but 
by  reason  of  the  divine  hints,  which 
these  intuitions  contain,  of  higher 
spiritual  altitudes  and  loftier  issues 
than  man  had  before  dreamed  of. 

In  the  discussion  between  Calvin 
and  Melancthon,  the  former  is  as 
clay  in  the  hands  of  his  humanita- 
rian opponent.  This  is  surely  an 
unfair  representation  of  the  acknowl- 
edged logical  acumen  of  the  great 
Genevan  theologian.     Nevertheless, 


Landors  Prose  Writings.   139 

Melancthon  enunciates  several  senti- 
ments which  it  would  have  been  well 
if  Calvin  and  some  of  his  theological 
successors  had  thoughtfully  heeded. 
Thus  he  says,  somewhat  after  the 
manner  of  Emerson  or  Matthew  Ar- 
nold :  "  What  a  curse  hath  metaphor 
been  to  religion  !  It  is  the  wedge 
that  holds  asunder  the  two  great 
portions  of  the  Christian  world.  We 
hear  of  nothing  so  commonly  as  fire 
and  sword.  And  here,  indeed,  what 
was  metaphor  is  converted  into  sub- 
stance and  applied  to  practice." 
Again,  he  says  :  "  I  remember  no 
discussion  on  religion  in  which  reli- 
gion was  not  a  sufferer  by  it,  if 
mutual  forbearance  and  belief  in  an- 
other's good  motives  and  intentions 
are  (as  I  must  always  think  they  are) 
its  proper  and  necessary  appurte- 
nances." How  identical  this  senti- 
ment is  with  the  life  and  thought  of 
our  great  American  teacher,   Emer- 


1 40      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

son  !  And  again,  near  the  close 
of  the  dialogue,  Melancthon  makes 
some  searching  remarks  concern- 
ing idolatry,  discussing  it  very  much 
as  a  Greek  philosopher  would,  and 
at  last  uttering  this  humanitarian 
principle  :  "  But  in  regard  to  idola- 
try, I  see  more  criminals  that  are 
guilty  of  it  than  you  do.  I  go  below 
the  stone-quarry  and  the  pasture,  be- 
yond the  graven  image  and  the  ox- 
stall.  If  we  bow  before  the  distant 
image  of  good,  while  there  exists 
within  our  reach  one  solitary  object 
of  substantial  sorrow,  which  sorrow 
our  efforts  can  remove,  we  are  guilty 
(I  pronounce  it)  of  idolatry.  We  pre- 
fer the  intangible  effigy  to  the  living 
form.  Surely  we  neglect  the  service 
of  our  Maker  if  we  neglect  his  chil- 
dren." This  religion  of  kindly 
common-sense  is  again  expounded  by 
William  Perm  in  his  dialogue  with 
Lord  Peterborough,  who  represents 


Landor' s  Prose  Writings.   141 

the  aristocrat  with  ideals  out  of  joint 
with  the  actual  condition  of  the 
aristocracy.  Landor  is  here  able 
to  give  voice  to  his  oft  repeated 
disgust  for  a  democracy,  which  must 
needs  be  devoid  of  nobility  and  dis- 
tinction. Landor  thoroughly  con- 
curred in  Pascal's  saying  :  "  A  mesure 
qu'on  a  plus  d' esprit  on  trouve  quil 
y  a  phis  d' homines  originaux.  Les 
gens  du  commun  ne  tronvent  pas  de 
difference  entre  les  hommes" 

Without  taking  the  space  to  dilate 
upon  the  fine  old  Roman  dignity 
which  permeates  the  dialogues  be- 
tween Lucullus  and  Caesar,  and 
Cicero  and  his  brother,  we  must 
select  finally,  as  bringing  out  an 
element  in  Landor's  character,  the 
conversations  between  Chesterfield 
and  Chatham,  and  Diogenes  and 
Plato,  both  of  these  having  for  their 
object  to  exhibit  the  last-named 
philosopher  in  a  light  decidedly  un- 


142      Waller  Savage  Landor. 

favorable  to  his  reputation.  As  Mr. 
Colvin  has  pointed  out,  Landor  had 
spent  weeks  in  strenuously  reading 
all  the  Platonic  dialogues  in  the 
original.  This  examination  must 
have  been  somewhat  perfunctory  ; 
and  partly  as  the  result  of  it,  Landor 
conceived  an  invincible  dislike  for 
what  he  held  to  be  the  "  bodiless  in- 
comprehensible vagaries"  and  the 
falsely  ornate  style  of  Plato ;  there- 
fore he  makes  this  philosopher 
appear  as  a  ridiculous  milksop  of  a 
sophist  in  the  presence  of  his  gruff 
contemporary  of  the  Tub  ;  and  even 
when  Plato  indulges  in  a  fine  figure 
like  this,  "  The  brightest  of  stars 
appear  the  most  unsteady  and  trem- 
ulous in  their  light,  not  from  any 
quality  inherent  in  themselves,  but 
from  the  vapors  that  float  below,  and 
from  the  imperfection  of  vision  in 
the  surveyor,"  Diogenes  roughly 
retorts,    "  Draw     thy    robe    around 


Landors  Prose  Writings.    1 43 

thee;  let  the  folds  fall  gracefully, 
and  look  majestic.  That  sentence  is 
an  admirable  one  ;  but  not  for  me. 
I  want  sense,  not  stars."  Diogenes 
here  gives,  more  or  less  truly,  Lan- 
dor's  real  thought  concerning  Plato, 
and  concerning  even  the  faintest 
tincture  of  so-called  mysticism.  This 
attitude  toward  the  Greek  thinker 
shows,  characteristically,  an  obvious 
limitation  in  Landor's  intelligence. 
His  mind  clung  only  too  tenaciously 
to  the  tangible  ;  and  speculative  in- 
sight, the  power  of  drawing  the  uni- 
versal out  of  its  investiture  in  par- 
ticulars, he  therefore  undervalued, 
designating  its  products  by  some 
such  opprobrious  epithets  as  "  bodi- 
less incomprehensible  vagaries."  In 
this,  Landor  is  another  example 
of  the  tendency  to  depreciate  that 
particular  faculty  which  one  does 
not  happen  to  possess. 

While  the  dialogues  of  reflection 


144      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

are  thus  somewhat  too  heavily 
freighted  with  Landor's  idiosyn- 
crasies, and  are  likewise  open  to  the 
two  general  defects  of  being  one- 
sided in  opinion  and  deficient  in 
organic  unity,  the  dialogues  of  ac- 
tion are  amenable  to  none  of  these 
objections,  but  are  scenes  transcribed 
from  the  drama  of  history  with  as 
masterful  a  hand  as  any  within  the 
range  of  classical  literature.  These 
dialogues  are  especially  and  justly 
noted  for  their  delicate  insight  into 
womanhood.  In  a  letter  to  Southey 
Landor  makes  us  aware  of  the  source 
of  this  power.  "  I  delight,"  he  says, 
"  in  the  minute  variations  and  almost 
imperceptible  shades  of  the  female 
character,  and  confess  that  my  rev- 
eries, from  my  most  early  youth, 
were  almost  entirely  on  what  this 
one  or  that  one  would  have  said  or 
done  in  this  or  that  situation.  Their 
countenances,  their  movements,  their 


Landors  Prose  Writings.   145 

forms,  the  colors  of  their  dresses, 
were  before  my  eyes."  In  the  con- 
crete realization  of  these  reveries  in 
such  personages  as  Anne  Boleyn, 
Lady  Lisle,  Jeanne  D'Arc,  Vipsania, 
and  Godiva,  the  original  glow  of  his 
imagination  shines  with  undiminished 
brightness  and  beauty. 

Thus,  the  unfortunates,  Vipsania 
and  Anne  Boleyn,  in  their  womanly 
patience  and  innocency  stand  in 
touching  contrast  to  their  husbands, 
the  weak-willed  Tiberius  and  the 
brutal  Henry.  Another  attractive 
female  character  is  Rhodope,  who 
tells  to  her  fellow-slave,  ^Esop,  the 
story  of  a  famine  during  which  her 
father  was  forced  to  sell  her  into 
slavery.  Parts  of  this  dialogue  are 
in  Landor's  best  style.  Yet  it  is 
always  true  of  him  that  in  narratives 
introduced  in  the  midst  of  the  con- 
versation he  is  apt  to  grow  tedious 
and   to   violate  probability.      Thus, 


1 46      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

Rhodope,  though  only  five  years  of 
age  when  the  famine  occurred,  and 
now  only  fourteen,  recalls  the  details 
connected  with  it  as  if  she  had  been 
a  grown  woman.  Her  memory  of 
the  incidents  is  more  than  preco- 
cious, it  is  prematurely  old  ;  and  she 
reminds  us  of  one  of  those  diminu- 
tive adults  that  are  represented  by 
early  sculptors  in  default  of  children. 
Thus  a  child  of  five  years  has  the 
sagacity  to  know  the  estimation  in 
which  her  "  father  had  always  been 
held  by  his  fellow-citizens,"  and  the 
precocity  to  pinch  his  ear,  as  a  play- 
ful way  of  arousing  his  anger  against 
one  of  his  friends.  Nor  can  we  de- 
fend this  unreality  by  supposing  that 
Rhodope's  present  developed  per- 
sonality colors  the  memory  of  her 
past  experience,  since  even  at  the 
time  of  her  relating  the  story  she  is 
a  mere  girl  of  fourteen. 

A  more    successful  dialogue,    and 


Landors  Prose  Writings.   147 

one  which  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the 
sweetest,  purest,  and  most  compas- 
sionate of  all  Landor's  women,  is  that 
between  the  Lady  Godiva  and  her 
husband,  Earl  Leofric.  It  would  be 
hard  to  find  in  literature  a  more  beau- 
tiful and  touching  conception  than 
that  of  the  tender-hearted  Lady  Godi- 
va, pleading  with  all  the  enticements 
of  love  and  all  the  power  of  an  angel, 
that  thus  she  may  prevail  upon  her 
obdurate  lord  to  remit  the  tax,  which 
his  starving  tenants  are  unable  to 
pay,  even  after  the  utmost  self-de- 
denial.  Thus,  when  Leofric  declares 
that  the  tax  must  be  paid,  else  solemn 
festivals  cannot  be  held,  Godiva  re- 
joins: "Is  the  clamorousness  that 
succeeds  the  death  of  God's  dumb 
creatures,  are  crowded  halls,  are 
slaughtered  cattle,  festivals?  are 
maddening  songs  and  giddy  dances, 
and  hireling  praises  from  party-col- 
ored   coats  ?     Can    the   voice    of    a 


148      Waller  Savage  Landor. 

minstrel  tell  us  better  things  of 
ourselves  than  our  own  internal  one 
might  tell  us  ?  or  can  his  breath 
make  our  breath  softer  in  sleep? 
Oh  my  beloved  !  let  everything  be  a 
joyancc  to  us ;  it  will,  if  we  will. 
Sad  is  the  day,  and  worse  must  fol- 
low, when  we  hear  the  blackbird  in 
the  garden  and  do  not  throb  with 
joy.  But,  Leofric,  the  high  festival 
is  strown  by  the  servant  of  God  upon 
the  heart  of  man.  It  is  gladness,  it 
is  thanksgiving ;  it  is  the  orphan, 
the  starveling,  pressed  to  the  bosom, 
and  bidden,  as  its  first  command- 
ment, to  remember  its  benefactor. 
We  will  hold  this  festival,  the  guests 
are  ready.  We  may  keep  it  up  for 
weeks,  and  months,  and  years  to- 
gether, and  always  be  the  happier 
and  richer  for  it.  The  beverage  of 
this  feast,  O  Leofric,  is  sweeter  than 
bee  or  flower  or  vine  can  give  us : 
it  flows  from  heaven  ;  and  in  heaven 


Landors  Prose  Writings.    149 

will  it  abundantly  be  poured  out 
again,  to  him  who  pours  it  out  here 
unsparingly."  The  angelic  spirit 
with  which  the  lady  nerves  herself 
to  obey  the  cruel  requirement  which 
her  spouse,  partly  in  jest  and  partly 
in  vexation,  had  laid  upon  her,  that 
he  might  thus  induce  her  to  desist 
from  the  request,  is  a  fit  climax  to 
this  most  perfect  of  the  conversa- 
tions. 

Dialogues  very  different  from  these 
and  from  each  other,  are  the  ones 
between  Metellus  and  Marius,  and 
Peter  the  Great  and  his  son  Alexis. 
Each  illustrates  a  phase  of  Landor's 
talent.  The  former  with  its  stupen- 
dous conception  of  "  the  civic  fire" 
portrays  the  insatiable  spirit  of  Ro- 
man conquest  ;  the  latter,  Landor's 
harsh,  rugged  manner  in  his  satires. 
It  was  impossible  for  him  to  condone 
what  is  base  or  cruel,  so  that  his 
satire  resembles  Juvenal's  or  Swift's, 


1 50      Waller  Savage  Landor. 

more  than  Horace's  or  Thackeray's. 
He  aims  to  be  extravagant  and 
crushing  rather  than  mildly  derisive, 
and  distorts  the  facts,  not  mockingly, 
but  with  a  profound  sense  of  anger 
for  outraged  justice. 

As  showing  another  feature  of 
Landor's  talent,  namely,  the  way  in 
which  he  took  the  bare  intimations 
of  history  and  clothed  them  by  the 
power  of  a  suggestive,  sympathetic 
imagination,  we  might  instance  the 
dialogue  between  the  Earl  of  Essex 
and  Edmund  Spenser.  Probably 
the  only  historic  material  for  this 
finely  conceived  scene  is  to  be  found 
in  the  following  statement  of  Ben 
Jonson,  as  reported  by  his  literary 
compeer,  Drummond  of  Hawthorn- 
den  :  "  The  Irish  having  rob'd  Spen- 
ser's goods,  and  burnt  his  house  and 
a  little  child  new-born,  he  and  his 
wife  escaped  ;  and  after,  he  died  for 
lake  of  bread,  in  King  street,  and  re- 


Landor  s  Prose  Writings.    1 5 1 

fused  20  pieces  sent  to  him  by  my 
Lord  of  Essex,  and  said  he  was  sorrie 
he   had    no    time  to    spend    them." 
Landor  used  to  say  of  himself :  "  I 
am  a  horrible  confounder  of  histori- 
cal facts  ;   I  have  usually  one  history 
that  I  have  read,  and  another  that  I 
have  invented."     The   truth  of  the 
acknowledgment    is     seen     in     this 
dialogue,  whose  dramatic  motive,  as 
invented  by  Landor,  lies  in  Essex's 
ignorance  of  the  reason  for  the  poet's 
grief,  and  in  the  gradual  revelation 
of  its  cause,  and  in  the  exquisite  tact 
and  kindness    with   which    the  Earl 
seeks  to  lighten  the  grievous  burden 
of  his  unfortunate  friend.     Another 
dialogue  even  more  pathetic,  and  one, 
moreover,  which   rises  to  the   very 
summit  of  sublimity,  is  that  between 
Lady    Lisle    and    Elizabeth    Gaunt. 
The    humility    and    complete    self- 
abnegation    shown    by  these  heroic 
souls  are  conceived  with  loving  fidel- 


152       Walter  Savage  Landor.  \ 

ity ;  and  the  depth  of  Christian  feel- 
ing displayed  makes  us  almost  wil- 
ling- to  take  back  the  assertion,  made 
in  treating  of  Landor  as  a  man  of 
letters,  that  the  Christian  ideal  of 
self-sacrifice  was  foreign  to  his  na- 
ture. In  such  dialogues  as  this,  one 
realizes  that  if  Landor  did  not  follow 
the  exact  facts  of  the  past,  he  so 
transfused  and  irradiated  the  spirit 
of  history  as  to  render  the  notice  of 
his  departure  from  minute  accuracy 
unessential  and  ill-timed. 

The  style  of  these  dialogues  of  ac- 
tion is  as  interesting  a  study  as  their 
subject-matter.  In  them,  Landor 
often  carries  his  tendency  to  conden- 
sation of  phrase  and  thought  to  an 
extreme.  He  gives  no  stage  direc- 
tions, and  we  have  constantly  to  im- 
agine what  the  actors  are  doing,  in 
order  that  we  may  catch  the  thread 
of  their  intercourse.  Thus,  we  must 
picture  Godiva,  as  having  dismounted 


Landors  Prose  Writings.    153 

and  as  kneeling  by  the  side  of  the 
road,    petitioning     Leofric's    mercy 
toward  his  vassals  ;  when  suddenly  he 
exclaims  :  "  Here  comes  the  bishop  : 
we  are  but  one  mile  from  the  walls. 
Why  dismountest  thou  ?    No  bishop 
can  expect  it.     Godiva!    my  honor 
and  my  rank  among  men  are  hum- 
bled by  this :   Earl  Godwin  will  hear 
of  it.    Up  !  up  !  the  bishop  hath  seen 
it ;  he  urgeth  his  horse  onward.    Dost 
thou  not    hear  him    now  upon    the 
solid  turf  behind  thee?"     At  times, 
this  mode  of  indirectly  incorporating 
what  are  really  stage  directions,  into 
the  dialogue,  gives  us  an  unpleasant 
jar ;  because  we  feel  that  one  actor 
is  describing  to  the  other  what  must 
be  already  patent  to  both,  and  that 
this  is  done  merely  for  the  sake  of 
making   the   situation    plain  to  the 
audience. 

Another  peculiarity  is  the  main- 
tenance of  sober  and  regularly  con- 


1 54      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

structed  sentences  even  in  the  midst 
of  the  highest  excitement  and  passion. 
This  tendency,  already  noted,  leads 
to  a  peculiar  psychological  effect 
upon  the  reader.  It  makes  him  more 
directly  moved  by  the  attractive 
management  of  the  situation  than  by 
its  inherent  pathos  or  sublimity. 
Our  critical  appreciation  is  never 
held  in  abeyance.  Hence  the  quali- 
ties of  Landor's  work  appeal  to  us 
more  as  artists  than  simply  as  men. 
We  always  remain  conscious  of  its 
technical  finish.  The  emotions  ex- 
perienced by  the  character,  while 
conceived  with  all  fidelity,  yet  their 
expression  being  sober  and  regular, 
and  not,  as  in  life,  harsh  and  dis- 
jointed, the  scene  is  removed  a  step 
from  the  actual,  and  we  are  unable 
to  enter  spontaneously  into  the  rush 
of  feeling,  but  must  admire  while 
keeping  relatively  unmoved.  These 
facts  explain  why  Landor,  like   Ed- 


Landor  s  Prose  Writings.    155 

mund  Spenser,  may   be     called    "a 
writer's  writer." 

If  this  epithet  might  be  applied  to 
the  author  of  the  Imaginary  Conver- 
sations, — typical  specimens  of  which, 
we  have  tried  to  select  from  among 
the  one  hundred  and  forty-seven 
dialogues, — much  more  is  it  applica- 
ble to  one  who  wrote  the  Citation 
and  Examination  of  William  Shak- 
speare  before  the  Worshipful  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy,  Knight,  touching  Deer- 
stealing.  This  amplified  conversa- 
tion Landor  composed  while  at  his 
beautiful  Italian  home,  the  Villa 
Gherardescha,  where  he  lived  from 
1829  to  1837,  and  where  he  also 
wrote  the  Pericles  and  Aspasia,  and  a 
part  of  the  Pentameron.  The  Exam, 
{nation,  which  is  an  elaborate  essay 
at  humor  conveyed  in  the  heavily 
loaded  style  of  Elizabethan  prose,  is 
the  least  happy  of  all  Landor's  longer 
writings.    He  himself  expressed  some 


156      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

doubts  as  to  whether  his  humor 
would  seem  humorous  —  doubts 
which  were  amply  sustained  by  the 
result.  The  attempt  to  retain  evan- 
escent flashes  of  wit  within  a 
euphuistic  style  laden  with  formali- 
ties and  circumlocutions  is  as  though 
one  should  try  to  spirit  about  a 
bludgeon  as  if  it  were  a  rapier.  Wit 
and  humor  of  this  description  tend  to 
become  ponderous  and  depressing  • 
and  this  is  just  what  Landor's 
efforts  at  the  facetious  actually  are. 
One  easily  recognizes  other  defects. 
The  freedom  of  epithet  and  of  refer- 
ence, not  to  say  the  indecency  of  an 
occasional  remark,  particularly  one 
from  Sir  Silas,  may  be  characteristic 
of  Elizabethan  literature,  but  fortu- 
nately is  not  of  Victorian.  Indeed, 
Landor  has  reproduced  this  element 
with  more  historic  accuracy  than  he 
has  some  others  worthier  of  reproduc- 
tion.    Thus,  for  example,  the  verses 


Landors  Prose  Writings.    1 5  7 

discovered  in  the  culprit's  pocket  are 
much  more  Landorian  than  Shak- 
spearian.  And  Shakspeare  himself, 
in  the  person  of  a  decidedly  pert 
young  man,  would  hardly  lead  one 
to  infer  the  presence  of  a  universal 
genius. 

The  grandiloquent  knight,  who 
prides  himself  upon  his  gentle  birth 
and  his  knowledge  of  poetry  and 
theology,  and  his  malicious  chaplain, 
Master  Silas  Gough,  who  entertains 
designs  upon  Shakspeare's  sweet- 
heart, Anne  Hathaway,  are  more 
happily  conceived,  in  a  vein  of  humor 
somewhere  between  mere  exaggera- 
tion and  caricature.  And  the  clever 
sayings  which  the  former  sometimes 
throws  out  to  his  dependants,  as  well 
as  the  weighty  words  which  Shak- 
speare is  made  to  quote  from  Dr. 
Glaston,  an  Oxford  preacher,  are 
well  worth  digging  out  and  scrutiniz- 
ing.     The   entire    narrative    of    the 


158      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

pathetic  fate  of  the  young  poet,  John 
Wellerby,  which  Shakspeare  is  sup- 
posed to  have  heard  from  Dr.  Glaston, 
is  permeated  with  an  ideal  beauty, 
making  it  by  far  the  finest  passage  in 
this  disappointing  book. 

The  Pcntamcron,  another  conversa- 
tion elaborated  into  a  small  volume, 
is  much  more  successful  both  in  choice 
of  subject  and  in  treatment.  It  pur- 
ports to  be  five  interviews,  held  on 
five  successive  days,  between  Boc- 
caccio, who  is  ill,  and  his  sympathetic 
friend,  Petrarch,  who  has  come  to 
visit  him.  The  title  and  idea  of  the 
book  are  of  course  taken  from  Boc- 
caccio's Decameron,  which  always  ap- 
pealed to  Landor,  doubtless  above 
its  actual  value.  Boccaccio's  honest 
and  lusty,  if  sometimes  coarse,  real- 
ism, his  hearty  grasp  upon  certain 
types  of  character,  his  power  as  a 
story-teller  —  all  aroused  Landor's 
admiration.      And  moreover,  on  the 


Landors  Prose  Writings.   1 59 

very  grounds  about  the  villa  where 
Landor  lived  lay  the  Valley  of  La- 
dies, described  in  the  Decameron ; 
and,  as  Forster  says,  from  Landor's 
"  gate  up  to  the  gates  of  Florence 
there  was  hardly  a  street  or  farm 
that  the  great  story-teller  had  not 
associated  with  some  witty  or  affect- 
ing narrative."  Such  scenes  were 
naturally  calculated  to  quicken  Lan- 
dor's imagination,  and  to  intensify 
his  interest  in  Boccaccio. 

It  were  useless  in  examining  a 
book  as  delightful  as  this,  some  of 
whose  pages,  as  Mrs.  Browning  said, 
"are  too  delicious  to  turn  over,"  to 
do  other  than  allow  it  to  interpret 
itself.  Its  three  most  striking  feat- 
ures, its  episodes,  allegories,  and 
criticisms,  are  best  seen  by  quota- 
tion, the  only  difficulty  in  such  a 
course  being,  that,  amid  such  fasci- 
nating and  quotable  material,  it  is 
impossible  to  resist  the  temptation 


160      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

of  transcribing  one  more  sentence, 
and  you  are  thus  irresistibly  lured 
on. 

Take  these  scraps  of  the  episode 
relating  to  Petrarch's  visit  to  the 
parish  church  at  Certaldo.  "  It  be- 
ing now  the  Lord's  Day,  Messer 
Francesco  thought  it  meet  that  he 
should  rise  early  in  the  morning  and 
bestir  himself,  to  hear  mass  in  the 
parish  church  at  Certaldo.  Where- 
upon he  went  on  tiptoe,  if  so  weighty 
a  man  could  indeed  go  in  such  a 
fashion,  and  lifted  softly  the  latch  of 
Ser  Giovanni's  chamber  door,  that 
he  might  salute  him  ere  he  departed, 
and  occasion  no  wonder  at  the  step 
he  was  about  to  take.  .  .  .  He 
then  went  into  the  kitchen,  where  he 
found  the  girl  Assunta,  and  men- 
tioned his  resolution.  .  .  .  But 
Ser  Francesco,  with  his  natural  po- 
liteness, would  not  allow  her  to  equip 
his  palfrey.     '  This  is  not  the  work 


Landors  Prose  Writings.   161 

for  maidens,'  said  he  ;  '  return  to  the 
house,  good  girl ! '  She  lingered  a 
moment,  then  went  away;  but,  mis- 
trusting the  dexterity  of  Ser  Fran- 
cesco, she  stopped  and  turned  back 
again,  and  peeped  through  the  half- 
closed  door,  and  heard  sundry  sobs 
and  wheezes  around  about  the  girth. 
Ser  Francesco's  wind  ill  seconded  his 
intention  ;  and,  although  he  had 
thrown  the  saddle  valiantly  and 
stoutly  in  its  station,  yet  the  girths 
brought  him  into  extremity.  She 
entered  again,  and  dissembling  the 
reason,  asked  him  whether  he  would 
not  take  a  small  beaker  of  the  sweet 
white  wine  before  he  set  out,  and 
offered  to  girdle  the  horse  while  his 
Reverence  bitted  and  bridled  him. 
Before  any  answer  could  be  returned, 
she  had  begun.  And  having  now 
satisfactorily  executed  her  undertak- 
ing, she  felt  irresistible  delight  and 
glee  at  being  able  to  do  what   Ser 


1 62      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

Francesco  had  failed  in.  He  was 
scarcely  more  successful  in  his  allot- 
ment of  the  labor — found  unlooked- 
for  intricacies  and  complications  in 
the  machinery,  wondered  that  human 
wit  could  not  simplify  it,  and  de- 
clared that  the  animal  never  had 
exhibited  such  restiveness  before. 
In  fact,  he  had  never  experienced 
the  same  grooming." 

Although  Landor  expressed  his 
own  belief  when  he  represented  Pe- 
trarch as  saying :  "  Allegory  had  few 
attractions  for  me,  believing  it  to  be 
the  delight  in  general  of  idle,  frivo- 
lous, inexcursive  minds,  in  whose 
mansions  there  is  neither  hall  nor 
portal  to  receive  the  loftier  of  the 
passions  "  ;  yet  for  picturesqueness 
of  expression  and  transparency  of 
sentiment,  the  allegories,  in  the  form 
of  dreams,  which  Boccaccio  and 
Petrarch  relate  to  each  other,  are 
unsurpassed  in    the  prose  literature 


Land  or  s  Prose  Writings.   163 


of   imagination.      Notice    this    fine 

0 

consolatory  description  of  Death  in 
Petrarch's  allegory  of  Sleep,  Love, 
and  Death.  "At  last,  before  the 
close  of  the  altercation  between  Love 
and  Sleep,  the  third  Genius  had  ad- 
vanced, and  stood  before  us.  I  can- 
not tell  how  I  knew  him,  but  I  knew 
him  to  be  the  Genius  of  Death. 
Breathless  as  I  was  at  beholding 
him,  I  soon  became  familiar  with  his 
features.  First  they  seemed  calm  ; 
presently  they  grew  contemplative ; 
and  lastly  beautiful :  those  of  the 
Graces  themselves  are  less  regular, 
less  harmonious,  less  composed. 
Love  glanced  at  him  unsteadily, 
with  a  countenance  in  which  there 
was  somewhat  of  anxiety,  somewhat 
of  disdain  ;  and  cried  :  '  Go  away  ! 
go  away !  nothing  that  thou  touch- 
est,  lives  ! '  '  Say  rather,  child  !' 
replied  the  advancing  form,  and  ad- 
vancing grew  loftier  and  statelier, — 


1 64      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

'  Say  rather  that  nothing  of  beauti- 
ful or  of  glorious  lives  its  own  true 
life  until  my  wing  hath  passed  over 
it.'  Love  pouted,  and  rumpled  and 
bent  down  with  his  forefinger  the 
stiff,  short  feathers  on  his  arrow- 
head ;  but  replied  not.  Although 
he  frowned  worse  than  ever,  and  at 
me,  I  dreaded  him  less  and  less,  and 
scarcely  looked  toward  him." 

Of  criticisms  and  of  general  reflec- 
tions, most  of  them  upon  literary 
topics,  the  Pentameron  has  a  de- 
lightful profusion.  "  No  advice  is 
less  necessary  to  you,"  Landor  says, 
through  the  thin  disguise  of  Pe- 
trarch, "  than  the  advice  to  express 
your  meaning  as  clearly  as  you  can. 
Where  the  purpose  of  glass  is  to  be 
seen  through,  we  do  not  want  it 
tinted  or  wavy."  Again,  it  is  really 
Landor  who  says :  "  Enter  into 
the  mind  and  heart  of  your  own 
creatures  ;  think  of  them   long,  en- 


Landor  s  Prose  Writings.    165 

tirely,  solely  ;  never  of  style,  never 
of  self,  never  of  critics,  cracked  or 
sound.  Like  the  miles  of  an  open 
country,  and  of  an  ignorant  popula- 
tion, when  they  are  correctly  meas- 
ured they  become  smaller.  In  the 
loftiest  rooms  and  richest  entabla- 
tures are  suspended  the  most  spider- 
webs  ;  and  the  quarry  out  of  which 
palaces  are  erected  is  the  nursery  of 
nettle  and  bramble."  It  is  to  be 
regretted  that  Landor  failed  to  per- 
ceive, however,  that  these  spider- 
webs,  these  obscurities,  arising  from 
a  lack  of  consideration  for  one's  audi- 
ence, are  just  what  rightly  frighten 
away  the  majority  of  the  reading 
public. 

In  the  direct  line  of  literary  criti- 
cism, Landor  expends  his  energies 
upon  Horace,  Virgil,  and  Dante. 
When  treating  of  the  great  Floren- 
tine, it  were  well  if  he  had  kept  in 
mind  his  own  words,  which  he  puts 


1 66      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

into  the  mouth  of  Petrarch:  "Sys- 
tems of  poetry,  of  philosophy,  of 
government,  form  and  model  us  to 
their  own  proportions."  This  fact 
is  precisely  what  Landor  overlooks 
when  he  comes  to  examine  Dante. 
He  seems  to  be  oblivious  of  the 
truth  that  the  great  poet,  notwith- 
standing his  unique,  lofty,  and  om- 
nipresent personality,  was  an  inte- 
gral part  of  his  age  and  its  highest 
expression,  and  that  to  appreciate 
him  in  any  true  degree  the  imagina- 
tion must  travel  back  to  the  Middle 
Ages,  to  Dante's  environment, 
through  the  doors  of  approach  found 
in  the  history  of  popes  and  emperors, 
of  the  Italian  cities  and  of  scholas- 
ticism. Landor,  on  the  contrary, 
studies  Dante  as  an  isolated  phe- 
nomenon— as  we  have  already  had 
occasion  to  remark  ;  and  partly  for 
this  reason,  reaches  the  very  debat- 
able conclusion  that  in  the  whole  of 


Landors  Prose  Writings.     167 

the  Inferno  the  only  descriptions  at 
all  admirable  are  the  episode  of 
Francesca,  so  tenderly  human  as  it 
is,  though  atmosphered  by  despair, 
and  that  of  Ugolino.  "  Vigorous 
expressions  there  are  many,  but  lost 
in  their  application  to  base  objects  ; 
and  isolated  thoughts  in  high  relief, 
but  with  everything  crumbling 
around  them.  Proportionately  to 
the  extent,  there  is  a  scantiness  of 
poetry,  if  delight  be  the  purpose  or 
indication  of  it.  Intensity  shows 
everywhere  the  powerful  master : 
and  yet  intensity  is  not  invitation. 
A  great  poet  may  do  everything  but 
repel  us.  Established  laws  are  pliant 
before  him :  nevertheless  his  office 
hath  both  its  duties  and  its  limits." 

It  is  impossible  to  close  this  con- 
verse with  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio 
without  transcribing  the  following 
thoughts,  which,  in  their  nobility, 
are  not  unlike  Cicero's   meditations 


1 68      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

upon  friendship  and  old  age.  Pe- 
trarch says:  "  O  Giovanni!  the  heart 
that  has  once  been  bathed  in  love's 
pure  fountain,  retains  the  pulse  of 
youth  forever.  Death  can  only  take 
away  the  sorrowful  from  our  affec- 
tions :  the  flower  expands,  the  color- 
less film  that  enveloped  it  falls  off 
and  perishes."  Boccaccio  replies: 
"  We  may  well  believe  it :  and  be- 
lieving it,  let  us  cease  to  be  dis- 
quieted for  their  absence  who  have 
but  retired  into  another  chamber. 
We  are  like  those  who  have  over- 
slept the  hour:  when  we  rejoin  our 
friends,  there  is  only  the  more  joy- 
ance  and  congratulation.  Would  we 
break  a  precious  vase,  because  it  is 
as  capable  of  containing  the  bitter 
as  the  sweet?  No:  the  very  things 
which  touch  us  the  most  sensibly  are 
those  which  we  should  be  the  most 
reluctant  to  forget.  The  noble  man- 
sion   is   most  distinguished    by  the 


Landors  Prose  Writings.     169 

beautiful  images  it  retains  of  beings 
past  away ;  and  so  is  the  noble 
mind.  The  damps  of  autumn  sink 
into  the  leaves  and  prepare  them  for 
the  necessity  of  their  fall :  and  thus 
insensibly  are  we,  as  years  close 
around  us,  detached  from  our  te- 
nacity of  life  by  the  gentle  pressure 
of   recorded  sorrows." 

The  Pent amer 011  was  immediately 
preceded  by  the  Pericles  and  As- 
tasia, a  work  which  we  have  chosen 
to  treat  last,  because  we  regard  it  as 
pre-eminently  Landor's  masterpiece. 
Though  writing  without  books  of 
reference,  and  with  his  usual  deter- 
mination not  to  put  into  the  mouth 
of  his  speakers  any  words  which  his- 
tory has  attributed  to  them,  Landor 
was  yet  able  marvellously  to  repro- 
duce the  serenely  attractive  atmos- 
phere of  the  Periclean  age,  and  to 
fill  his  canvas  with  a  succession 
of  fair  forms  and    characteristically 


i  70      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

Greek,  and  at  the  same  time  Lan- 
dorian  reflections,  such  as  no  other 
modern  has  ever  succeeded  in  doing. 
The  volume  is  sui  generis,  and  will 
probably  long  remain  so  ;  moreover, 
unlike  Landor's  other  compositions, 
no  excisions  could  be  made  in  it 
without  weakening  the  general 
effect.  Of  course  the  antiquary- 
might  discover  anachronisms  and 
historic  inaccuracies  ;  but  then  his 
interference  here,  as  in  Shakspeare's 
plays,  is  often  an  impertinence — an 
insistence  upon  the  letter  and  a  dis- 
regard of  the  spirit. 

Moreover,  the  ideas  being  cast  in 
the  form  of  letters,  between  Peri- 
cles and  his  wife  and  between  her  and 
her  friends,  the  objections  involved 
in  Landor's  conduct  of  the  dia- 
logue are  of  none  effect.  It  would 
be  unnatural  for  letters,  which  pre- 
suppose decided  intervals  of  time 
between     their     composition,     and 


Landors  Prose  Writings.    1 7 1 

different  moods  in  the  writers,  to 
maintain  strict  organic  unity  and 
sequence  among  themselves.  That 
the  replies  are  as  spontaneous  and 
irregular  as  in  life,  introducing  any- 
passing  impressions  or  ideas  of  the 
correspondent  and  any  incident  or 
conversation  in  which  he  happened 
to  take  part,  constitutes  the  central 
charm  of  this  form  of  writing.  The 
lack  of  an  elaborate  plot  or  plan, 
which  in  other  compositions  would 
be  counted  a  weakness,  is  not  so 
here.  The  result  tends  rather  to 
produce  a  satisfying  sense  of  beauti- 
ful and  chaste  reality. 

And  as  giving  at  least  a  faint  idea 
of  the  finish  and  fascination  of  these 
letters,  take  the  closing  words  of  a 
missive,  written  by  Aspasia  to  her 
young  girl  friend  Cleone,  descrip- 
tive of  Alcibiades,  then  a  youth  : 
"  He  is  as  beautiful,  playful,  and  un- 
certain   as    any  half-tamed     young 


172      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

tiger,  feasted  and  caressed  on  the 
royal  carpets  of  Persepolis  ;  not  even 
Aspasia  will  ever  quite  subdue  him." 
Then  mark  Cleone's  reply  :  "  I  shall 
never  more  be  in  fear  about  you,  my 
Aspasia.  Frolicsome  and  giddy  as 
you  once  appeared  to  me,  at  no  time 
of  your  life  could  Alcibiades  have  in- 
terested your  affections.  You  will  be 
angry  with  me  when  I  declare  to  you 
that  I  do  not  believe  you  will  ever 
be  in  love.  The  renown  and  genius 
of  Pericles  won  your  imagination : 
his  preference,  his  fondness,  his  con- 
stancy, hold,  and  will  ever  hold, 
your  heart.  The  very  beautiful 
rarely  love  at  all.  Those  precious 
images  are  placed  above  the  reach  of 
the  Passions :  Time  alone  is  per- 
mitted to  efface  them ;  Time,  the 
father  of  the  gods,  and  even  their 
consumer."  Note  the  frank,  femi- 
nine rejoinder  of  Aspasia  :  "  Angry  ! 
yes,  indeed,  very  angry  am  I :  but 
let  me  lay  all  my  anger  in  the  right 


Landors  Prose  Writings,     i  j$ 

place.  I  was  often  jealous  of  your 
beauty,  and  have  told  you  so  a  thou- 
sand times.  Nobody  for  many  years 
ever  called  me  so  beautiful  as 
Cleone  ;  and  when  some  people  did 
begin  to  call  me  so,  I  could  not  be- 
lieve them.  Few  will  allow  the  first 
to  be  first  ;  but  the  second  and 
third  are  universal  favorites.  We 
are  all  insurgents  against  the  des- 
potism  of  excellence." 

Again,  take  this  scrap  which  intro- 
duces three  of  the  greatest  names  of 
Greece.  Aspasia  writes  to  Cleone  : 
"  We  were  conversing  on  oratory  and 
orators,  when  Anaxagoras  said,  look- 
ing at  Pericles  and  smiling,  '  They 
are  described  by  Hesiod  in  two 
verses,  which  he  applies  to  himself 
and  the  poets  : 

Lies  very  like  the  truth  we  tell, 
And,  when  we  wish  it,  truth  as  well.' 

Meton  relaxed  from   his  usual  seri- 
ousness, but  had  no  suspicion  of  the 


i  74      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

application,  saying,  '  Cleverly  ap- 
plied indeed  ! '  Pericles  enjoyed  the 
simplicity  of  Mcton  and  the  slyness 
of  Anaxagoras,  and  said,  '  Meton ! 
our  friend  Anaxagoras  is  so  modest 
a  man,  that  the  least  we  can  do  for 
him  is  to  acknowledge  his  claims  as 
heir  general  to  Hesiod.  See  them 
registered.'  I  have  never  observed 
the  temper  of  Pericles  either  above 
or  below  the  enjoyment  of  a  joke  ; 
he  invites  and  retaliates,  but  never 
begins,  lest  he  should  appear  to  take 
a  liberty.  There  are  proud  men  of 
so  much  delicacy,  that  it  almost 
conceals  their  pride,  and  perfectly 
excuses  it."  This  last  sentiment 
Landor  no  doubt  felt  would  apply 
to  himself  as  well. 

As  an  example  of  a  different  order 
of  thought,  let  us  transcribe  the  part- 
ing words  of  Pericles  when  on  his 
death-bed:  " 'Alcibiades  !  I  need  not 
warn   you    against    superstition :    it 


Landors  Prose  Writings.     175 

never  was  among  your  weaknesses. 
Do  not  wonder  at  these  amulets: 
above  all,  do  not  order  them  to  be 
removed.  The  kind  old  nurses,  who 
have  been  faithfully  watching  over 
me  day  and  night,  are  persuaded 
that  these  will  save  my  life.  Super- 
stition is  rarely  so  kind-hearted  ; 
whenever  she  is,  unable  as  we  are 
to  reverence,  let  us  at  least  respect 
her.  After  the  good,  patient  crea- 
tures have  found,  as  they  must  soon, 
all  their  traditional  charms  unavail- 
ing, they  will  surely  grieve  enough, 
and  perhaps  from  some  other  motive 
than  their  fallibility  in  science.  In- 
flict not,  O  Alcibiades,  a  fresh  wound 
upon  their  grief,  by  throwing  aside 
the  tokens  of  their  affection.  In 
hours  like  these  we  are  the  most 
indifferent  to  opinion,  and  greatly 
the  most  sensible  to  kindness.'  The 
statesman,  the  orator,  the  conqueror, 
the    protector,  had  died    away ;   the 


176      Walter  Savage  La?idor. 

philosopher,  the  humane  man,  yet 
was  living  .  .  .  alas  !  few  mo- 
ments more." 

Some  of  Landor's  most  character- 
istic utterances  on  the  great  subjects 
of  human  thought  are  to  be  found 
among  these  letters.  Thus,  viewing 
history,  not  from  the  modern  stand- 
point of  Vico  and  his  successors,  who 
perceive  within  historic  facts  the 
unity  of  a  progressively  unfolding 
idea,  but  from  the  individualistic 
standpoint,  Landor  says  :  "The  field 
of  History  should  not  be  merely  well 
tilled,  but  well  peopled.  None  is 
delightful  to  me,  or  interesting,  in 
which  I  find  not  as  many  illustrious 
names  as  have  a  right  to  enter  it. 
We  might  as  well  in  a  drama  place 
the  actors  behind  the  scenes,  and 
listen  to  the  dialogue  there,  as  in  a 
history  push  valiant  men  back,  and 
protrude  ourselves  with  husky  dispu- 
tations."    And    again  :    "  The  busi- 


Landor  s  Prose  Writings,     i  J  J 

ness  of  philosophy,"  says  Landor, 
"  is  to  examine  and  estimate  all  those 
things  which  come  within  the  cogni- 
zance of  the  understanding.  Specu- 
lations on  any  that  lie  beyond,  are 
only  pleasant  dreams  leaving  the 
mind  to  the  lassitude  of  disappoint- 
ment. They  are  easier  than  geom- 
etry and  dialectics ;  they  are  easier 
than  the  efforts  of  a  well-regulated 
imagination  in  the  structure  of  a 
poem."  And  it  is  obviously  Landor 
who  says:  "All  religions  in  which 
there  is  no  craft  nor  cruelty  are 
pleasing  to  the  immortal  gods  ;  be- 
cause all  acknowledge  their  power, 
invoke  their  presence,  exhibit  our 
dependence,  and  exhort  our  grati- 
tude." 

And  finally,  as  perfectly  mirroring 
the  Greek  spirit,  and  as  containing 
the  essence  of  that  Epicurean  philos- 
ophy which  would  pray  all  men  to 
enjoy  the  present,  its  sensations  and 


178      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

ideas,  and  to  count  not  upon  the 
future,  let  us  quote  these  graceful 
words  of  Cleone :  "We  have  kept 
your  birthday,  Aspasia  !  On  these 
occasions  I  am  reluctant  to  write 
anything.  Politeness,  I  think,  and 
humanity,  should  always  check  the 
precipitancy  of  congratulation.  No- 
body is  felicitated  on  losing.  Even 
the  loss  of  a  bracelet  or  tiara  is 
deemed  no  subject  for  merriment  or 
alertness  in  our  friends  and  followers. 
Surely  then  the  marked  and  regis- 
tered  loss  of  an  irreparable  year,  the 
loss  of  a  limb  of  life,  ought  to  excite 
far  other  sensations."  The  implica- 
tions involved  in  these  ideas  are  Hel- 
lenic to  the  core.  Indulging  our 
passions  and  emotions  within  rational 
bounds,  and  entertaining  no  vain 
regrets  over  the  past  and  no  foolish 
fears  concerning  the  future,  let  us 
seek  to  extract  from  the  fleeting 
moment  all  the  honey,  which,  in  the 


Landors  Prose  Writings,     i  79 

way  of  lawful  sensations  and  ideas 
that  moment  can  afford.  Such  an 
ideal  is  aesthetic  rather  than  moral. 
It  is  the  good,  approached,  if  at  all, 
through  the  gateway  of  the  beauti- 
ful. It  is  the  being  "  made  perfect 
by  the  love  of  visible  beauty  "  ;  and 
its  keynote  is  personal  nobility  rather 
than  devotion  to  one's  fellows.  Such 
an  ideal  was  Landor's ;  and  never 
has  it  been  more  alluringly  conveyed 
than  in  his  most  perfect  production, 
the  Pericles  and  Aspasia. 


IV. 

LANDOR'S    PLACE    IN    LITERA- 
TURE. 


181 


IV. 

LANDOR'S  PLACE  IN  LITERATURE. 

After  the  somewhat  exhaustive 
treatment  of  Landor  as  a  man  of 
letters,  the  determination  of  his  place 
in  literature  must,  in  our  estimation, 
have  already  been  made,  at  least  im- 
pliedly. Toward  the  close  of  his 
life,  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Brougham, 
Landor  himself  said  :  "  I  claim  no 
place  in  the  world  of  letters ;  I  am 
and  will  be  alone,  as  long  as  I  live, 
and  after."  That  he  has,  neverthe- 
less, a  place  in  the  literary  world  is 
now  undeniable,  and  that  this  place 
can  be  fixed  only  by  a  comparative 
estimate,  is  also  true.  Just  as  it  is 
impossible,  or  at  least  unnatural,  for 
183 


184      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

a  man  to  exist  alone,  a  cheerless  soli- 
tary ;  so  is  it  likewise  out  of  the 
question  for  an  author  to  waive  or 
forbid  comparisons.  Landor  must 
therefore  be  tried  by  the  same  jury 
as  his  fellow-authors.  And  what  is 
the  verdict? 

That  there  are  limitations  to  his 
genius  it  were  folly  to  deny.  The 
most  damaging  one  consists  in  his 
lack  of  spiritual  insight.  Words- 
worth's intuitional  poetry  was  always 
an  enigma  to  Landor,  who  was  wont 
to  affirm,  that,  as  the  miner  cannot 
delve  far  into  the  earth,  so  man 
cannot  plunge  into  the  abyss  of 
speculative  thought  without  directly 
reaching  the  void  and  formless,  and 
cheating  himself  and  others  into 
the  vain  belief  that  nebulous  rings, 
mere  airy  nothings,  are  habitable 
worlds.  Landor  might  have  been  a 
student  of  Kant,  considering  the 
accuracy  with   which,  in    a   literary 


Landor  s  Place  in  Literature.  185 

way,  he  conveys  the  impression  that 
supersensible  realities,  if  perchance 
they  exist,  are  unknown.  Landor 
had  nothing  of  that  Oriental  insight 
which  leads  the  mind  to  discover  the 
one  in  the  many,  and  a  God  in  all 
the  affairs  of  nature  and  man.  "As 
one  diffusive  air,  passing  through 
the  perforations  of  a  flute,  is  distin- 
guished as  the  notes  of  a  scale,  so 
the  nature  of  the  Great  Spirit  is 
single,  though  its  forms  be  manifold, 
arising  from  the  consequences  of 
acts."  Does  such  a  conception  pos- 
sess meaning  and  truth  ?  Landor 
would  have  answered  this  question 
in  the  negative. 

Nevertheless,  after  making  due 
allowance  for  limitations,  it  must  be 
conceded  that  Landor  has  offered 
some  permanent  contributions  to 
literature.  His  style  alone  must 
insure  the  preservation  of  much  of 
his  best  work.     Barring  the  fact  of 


1 86      Walter  Savage  Landor. 

occasional  obscurity,  arising  from 
undue  condensation  and  a  lack  of 
tact  and  of  sympathy  for  the  reader, 
and  also  barring  the  fact  that  his 
sentences  are  at  times  too  regular 
for  exuberant  life  and  reality,  Lan- 
dor's  style  is  flawless.  It  is  charac- 
teristic and  at  the  same  time  uni- 
versal. 

Passing  to  subject-matter,  one  can 
find  no  valid  reason  for  supposing 
that  Landor  has  not  enduringly  en- 
riched literature  by  the  choicest  of 
his  idyls,  of  his  scenes  in  dramatic 
poetry,  of  his  imaginary  conversa- 
tions, reflective  and  dramatic,  and  by 
his  Pericles  and  Aspasia.  Moreover, 
as  the  author  of  separate  thoughts, 
which  exhibit  their  extreme  delicacy 
and  beauty  all  the  more  clearly  after 
they  have  been  detached  from  their 
more  or  less  prosaic  surroundings, 
Landor  has  a  special  call  upon  our 
admiration.     With  the  exception  of 


Landors  Place  in  Literature.  187 

Coleridge,  English  literature  is  al- 
most devoid  of  really  fine  pense"e- 
writers — like  Pascal  and  Joubert, — 
who,  though  they  stand  related  to 
the  philosopher  as  gardeners  do  to 
the  geologist,  and  though  they  are 
more  concerned  about  truths  than 
truth  in  its  unity  and  at  the  same 
time  its  ramifying  multiplicity,  yet 
are  stimulating  and  suggestive,  often 
eminently  so.  And  it  is  in  this  ca- 
pacity, as  well  as  in  that  of  idyllist, 
dramatic  poet,  writer  of  imaginary 
conversations  and  letters,  that  Lan- 
dor  must  long  maintain  a  notable  place 
in  the  minds  of  those  choice  spirits 
who  love  beautiful  conceptions  and 
noble  thoughts  beautifully  and  nobly 
expressed. 


APPENDIX. 

As  an  attempt  to  give  color  to  our  rough  sketch 
of  the  Hellenics,  those  poetic  gems  from  which 
beam  the  joy,  buoyance,  and  serenity  of  the 
world's  youth  ;  the  following  idyl,  which  is  ani- 
mated, however  inadequately,  by  a  spirit  and 
method  of  treatment  similar  to  Landor's,  is  sub- 
joined. 


189 


THE  SHADOW  IN  STONE. 

THE  noon  had  passed,  and   Athens 
lay  in  light ; 
The  deepening,  azure-tinted  sky  drew 

low 
The  vault  of  heaven  ;  the  air  was  clear, 

so  clear 
That  shadows  of  yon  ivy  leaves  hung 

there, 
Against  the  wall,  more  real  than  what 

they  feigned  ; 
The    steeper    slopes    made    cavernous 

shades  ;  and  all, — 
Saving   the   olive  trees,    which   looked 

afar 
Like  hoary  clouds  stirred  by  a  gentle 

breeze, — 
All  was  distinct,  yet  warm  with  drowsy 

life. 

191 


1 9  2  Appendix. 

And  drowsy  was  the  murmur  of  the 
bees 

In  Myron's  garden,  and,  within  the  hall, 

Lygeia,  Myron's  daughter,  spake  in 
tones 

That  plashed  the  air  in  silvery  ripples, 
spake 

To  Rhoicos,  ever  and  anon  tapping 

His  hand  to  emphasize  her  word.  What 
was 

She  saying  ?  Who  can  tell  what  swal- 
lows chirp 

In  spring  !  The  lover's  language  is  a 
tongue 

Known  but  to  one  who  loves  ;  its  ca- 
dences 

Are  those  of  brook  or  breeze  or  ocean 
wave. 

So   there    they  sat,    hand   linked    in 

hand,  and  smiled 
And  prattled  at  the  simple  bliss  of  it  ; 
Till   Rhoicos,  catching  sight  of  shades 

that  lay 
Longer  than    four  tall  pillars    whence 

they  came, 


The  Shadoiv  in  Stone.     193 

Declared  't  was  time  to  seek  the  breezy 

porch, — 
Lygeia  having  prayed  of  him  to  show 
The  path   toward    Thebes,  and  thence 

must  he  depart, 
Before  the  shades  were  twice  as  long  as 

now. 

As    Rhoicos    ceased,     the    shadows 

spread  afar, 
Their  sun   had  sunk  into  a  darkening 

west  : 
Since   all   the   lamps   in    heaven    must 

drearily  burn 
For  nights  untold,  before  Lygeia's  eyes 
Could  glow   again    upon    the   eyes  she 

loved  : 
Rhoicos  must  leave  the  flowers  and  pur- 
pling grape 
Of  vine-clad  Attica,  must  leave  the  light 
From   sun-illumined  locks   and  sky-lit 

eyes. 
He   must   away,    for   duty    urged    him 

home 

To  a  lone  mother,  watching,  with  tired 

gaze, 
13 


1 94  Appendix. 

For  him  who  now   should  be  husband 

and  son 
Together  :  nor  was  it  permitted  him 
To  journey  back  to  rugged  Attica, 
When  wintry  blasts  were  raging  o'er  the 

land, 
For  it  was  whispered  in  the  agora 
That  Athens  meant  to  humble  haughty 

Thebes  ; 
And  even  then  the  Athenian  archons 

looked, 
With    eyes    askance,    upon    a   Theban 

youth. 
And  Myron  longed  to  keep  his  daugh- 
ter home, 
One    winter  more,  to    gladden  his  old 

eyes  ; 
So  he  declared  Lygeia  was  too  young 
To  see  the  nuptial  torch  borne  blazing 

forth, 
And    Rhoicos    must    await   till   vernal 

flowers 
Strew  bright  the  way  from  Athens  forth 

to  Thebes. 
Hence  were  they  sorrowful. 


The  Shadow  in  Stone.     195 

And  as  they  stepped 

Upon  the  porch,  whose  frieze  and  col- 
umns tall 

Were  graved  by  Myron's  skilful  hand  ; 
Rhoicos, 

That  he  might  turn  their  speech  in 
smoother  ways, 

Exclaimed, — one  arm  against  a  marble 
shaft, 

The  other  stretched  in  front  of  him  : 
"  'T  is  well 

For  thee  to  bide  here  where  the  far-off 
sea 

Flows  glimmering  toward  the  shore,  and 
as  thou  near'st 

Yon  sun-bathed  cliff,  to  catch  the 
glancing  smile 

Of  waves,  that  dash  the  sea-weed,  ochry- 
hued, 

Into  the  hollowed  rocks.  'T  were  sweet 
to  tread 

Such  paths  with  thee  as  guide.  Bright 
Thebes  can  boast 

Naught  fairer  than  yon  glimpse  of  wave- 
bound  wharves, 


196  Appendix. 

Where  husbandmen  have  garnered  dues 

of  oil 
And  fragrant  wine.     Yea,  harvest-laden 

fields 
And     softly     swaying     cypresses      are 

touched 
With    mellow  light,  and  all    is   passing 

fair. 
The  sky  is  swept  of  every  cloud,  save 

one, 
That  floats  serene   in   yon   vast  azure 

deep. 
A  foolish  cloud  !     the  flaming  chariot 

wheel 
Of  Helios  will  crush  into  thin  air 
The  mist  that  goes  unguarded  and  alone. 
Lygeia,  thou  art  such  a  virgin  cloud  ! 
And  would   an   oracle    might    straight 

declare, 
No    gorgeous    vapor,    silver-lined,    will 

rise 
To  seek  this  white-robed  cloud,  when 

I  have  gone 
The   dusky  way  from  Athens  forth  to 

Thebes ! 


The  Shadow  in  Sio7ie.     197 

Lygeia,  vow  to  me,  no  darkling  cloud, 
Though    silver-tipped,    'twixt   us   shall 

ever  lower." 
(For  Rhoicos  thought  of  the  Athenian 

youth, 
With   their   smooth-rolling   words    and 

glances  soft.) 

To  this  fond  talk  of  clouds,  Lygeia 

had, 
Like  other  maids,  paid  but  a  grudging 

heed  ; 
For  she  would  draw  his  gaze  down  from 

the  sky, 
Nor  would  she  have  her  lover  find  a  sun 
More  lucent  than  her  glowing  eyes,  a 

cloud 
So  sweetly  shading  as  their  down-turned 

lids  : 
So  she  cried,  laughing  :  "  Thou  thyself 

art  changed 
Into  a  sombre  cloud  with  a  silver  rim  !  " 

He   turned,    and   saw   that   she   had 
edged  with  chalk 


198  Appendix. 

The  shadow  of   his  form — with  crum- 
bling chalk 

That  gleamed    against   the  dull,   time- 
weathered  wall. 

"  Now,  Rhoicos,    what    say'st  thou    of 
clouds  with  rims 

Of  silver  ?  Shall  I  not  admire  this  shade, 

That  mimics  thee,  as  torches  do  the  sun  ? 

For,  gazing  at  this  shadow  of  thyself, 

I  can  compare  my  stature  with  thine 
own, 

Can  see  how  passing  tall  and  brave  thou 
art — 

Nor  was   thy  shadow    quite   so  tall  as 
thou  ! 

But  look  !     thine  outline  stands  below 
the  frieze 

Whereon  Athene'  Parthenos  contends 

For  sunny  Attica  'gainst  dreaded  lord 

Of  wind-lashed  wastes,  Poseidon  ;  o'er 
thine  head 

Athene^  my  protecting  goddess,  holds 

An  olive  branch  with  spiky  leaves,  and 
smiles 

Upon  thee." 


The  Shadoiv  in  Sto?ie.      199 

At  these  sallies  Rhoicos  laughed, 
And  said  :  "  Thou  should'st  have  made 

my  shadow  beam 
Upon  the  goddess  ;  for  't  was  on  her  day 
Of  choric  dance  and  festival,  I  first 
Beheld  thy  face. 

I  had  gone  by  that  age 
When  boys  choose  rather  to  play  games 

with  boys 
Than  tame  their  sport  to  girlish  tastes  ; 

and  soon 
My  dreams  gave  vision  of  fair  maids, 

their  locks 
Streaming  or  garlanded  with  hyacinth 
And    myrtle  intertwined,   who  blithely 

tripped 
With    me   to    groves   where   checkered 

shadows  play  ; 
When,  one  clear  morn,   while  Eos  yet 

upshot 
Her  burnished  arrows  'gainst  the  fleet- 
ing gloom, 
We  rose  in  haste, — I  vexed  for  broken 

dreams 


200  Appendix. 

Of  tripping  maids, — since  we  must  reach 

that  day 
The  pillared  heights  of  the  Acropolis  ; 
For   on    the   morrow    Athens   held    in 

pomp 
Her  choric  dance  and  sacred  festival 
In  reverence  of  Athene"  Parthenos. 
'T  was  on   that  morrow  I  beheld  you 

first. 
Amongst   the   white-robed   maids   who 

celebrate 
The   glistering   goddess    of    the   wide- 
arched  brow, 
I  saw   one   form   that   sent  me   to  my 

dreams, — 
I  thought  it  was  Athene  in  disguise  : 
And   all    the   journey  home   that   face 

would  start 
From  every  wayside  bush,  and  gaze  at 

me, 
And  set  me  longing  for  Athenian  streets 
And  sweet  processions   of   untroubled 

maids." 
And  thus  the  lovers  talked,  as  lovers  do, 
Of  nothing  save  themselves. 


The  Shadow  in  Stone.     201 

But  swift  the  fields 
Grew  golden-hued.     The  reapers  shade 

their  eyes 
And  westward  peer  :  they  think  of  wife 

and  child, 
And  gladsome  leisure  at  the  eventide. 
Such  thoughts  were  not  for  Rhoicos  : 

he  must  leave 
Lygeia  ;  and  the  laughter  that  outgushed 
From  rosy  lips,  he  might  not  hear  for 

days 
Untold.      Hence,  plaintive   were  their 

parting  words. 

And  as  he  wound  his  way  above  the 

slope, 
He   looked   back   long  and   wistfully  ; 

and  oft 
His  helmet  shimmered  in  the  glancing 

rays  : 
Blurred  was  Lygeia's  sight,  she  turned, 

she  cried 
To  Pallas,  who  upon  the  frieze  upheld 
Her  olive  branch  above   the    outlined 

form 


202  Appendix. 

Of  Rhoicos  :  "  O  thou  virgin  Deity, 
May  I  not  see  my  lover's  form  till  suns 
Unnumbered  flaunt  their  streamers  in 

the  west  ? 
Is   this    fond    outline    of    his   vanished 

shade 
The  only  semblance  of  his  shape  for  me 
To   gaze  upon,  and  gazing,  dream    of 

him?" 

Myron,  within  the  hall,  was  polishing 
A  statue  of  that  goddess  who  arose 
Refulgent  from  the  silvery  surge,  and 

smiles 
On  lovers,  Aphrodite,  golden-haired  ; 
And  when  he  heard  Lygeia's  prayer,  he 

came, — 
His    beard    by  many   winters    frosted 

white, — 
And  smilingly  he  spake  :  "Child,  I  o'er- 

heard 
Thy  words  to   Rhoicos,  when,  in   play, 

thou  saidst, 
That  he  was  changed  into  a  cloud  with 

rim 


The  Shadow  in  Stone.     203 

Of   silver,    and,  within   two   full-orbed 

moons, 
Will  turn  this  silver  lining  toward  thine 

eyes." 
At   these   strange  words   his   daughter 

marvelled  much. 

Far  other  words  came  to  Lygeia's  ear 
Full   soon — dread   words   that  set   her 

pondering, 
Until   her  limbs    grew  tremulous   with 

cold, 
And  stifling  fear  clutched  at  Lygeia's 

soul  : 
'T  was  rumored  in  the  streets  that  Ath- 
ens meant 
To  war  with  Thebes,  and  ever  and  anon, 
A    citizen,  with  breathless  speech  and 

looks 
Inquiring,  hasted  to  the  agora, 
To  learn  the  latest  word.     Lygeia  feared 
For  Rhoicos,  yet  she  tried  to  choke  her 

fear, 
And  tended  Myron's  wants,  as  was  her 

way. 


204  Appendix. 

And   then    to    rest    her    after    daily 
cares, 

When  night  folded  the  land  in  slumber- 
ous shade, 

She  would  steal  out  to  their  cool  west- 
ern porch, 

And    watch    Selene    ride,    fulgent    or 
veiled, 

Through    skies   paven  with    ponderous 
clouds,  through  skies 

Whose   paths   were   lightest  air  ;    then 
oft  her  dreams 

Would  turn  to  that  glad  day,  when,  hand 
in  hand, 

Rhoicos  and  she  might  journey  forth  to 
Thebes  ; 

And  nuptial  hymns  resound  and  torches 
flare  ; 

When,  suddenly,  a  blighting  fear  would 
chill 

Lygeia's  soul,  and  she  would  turn,  and 
scan, 

With  troubled  eyes,  the  outlined  form  of 
him 

She  longed  for. 


The  Shadow  in  Stone.     205 

And  oft  Myron,  musingly, 
Would  mark  this  self-same  outline,  then 

would  go 
Into  his  workshop,  whence  arose  the  din 
Of  splintering  chisel  and  of  rasping  file. 
In    this     slow,    weary    wise,    the    days 

dragged  on. 


The  leaves  have  fallen  on  the  Attic 

slopes  ; 
And  after  battle's  heated  rush,  how  soft 
To    wounded    warrior   is    their    kindly 

couch. 
Right  valiantly  have  ten  score  Theban 

youths 
Withstood,  from  dawn  to  eventide,  the 

darts 
Dealt  by  Athenian  hands  ;  but  now  the 

bloom 
Of  Theban  chivalry  is  faded,  gone. 
The  moonbeams  fall  on  faces  that  a  day 
Before   had    smiled  farewell  to   loving 

maids 
And  tearful  mothers,  faces  that  can  smile 


206  Appendix. 

No  more,  but  lie   all   bathed    in    cold 

moonlight, 
Or    sunk   in    Stygian    shadow,  when    a 

cloud, 
Scurrying  athwart  the  sky,  obscures  the 

moon. 
The  wind  is   sobbing,  sobbing,  in  the 

trees  ; 
And  ever  and  anon,  a  faded  leaf 
Is  blown  upon  a  burnished  shield,  and 

dims 
Its  brightness. 

Glorious  little  Theban  band  ! 

Like  heroes  have  ye  fought  against  foul 
odds, 

Nor  was  there  one  poor,  craven  soul 
that  turned 

His  back  upon  the  foe.  By  your  proud 
names, 

Will  Theban  fathers  call  their  lithe- 
limbed  sons  ; 

And  mothers,  taking  on  their  laps  their 
boys, 

Will  tell  the  story  of  your  fortitude, 


The  Shadow  in  Stone.     207 

Nor  will  they  fail  to  speak  of  him  who 

stood, 
Staunch  leader  of   the  ranks,   Rhoicos 

the  brave. 


With  lordly  waving  plume  and  brow 

elate, 
The  Athenians  enter  now  their  city  walls ; 
And  all  the  streets  are  clamorous  with 

acclaim. 
The  elder  warriors  throw  their  armor  off, 
Glad  to  reach  home  once  more  ;    the 

younger  men, 
Each  clad  in  greaves  and  breastplate, 

hasten  forth 
To  seek  the  timid  smiles  of  those  they 

love. 
And  as  the  maidens  catch  their  heroes' 

tread, 
Each   heart   beats  quick,  and   blushes 

come  and  go. 

Alone,  disconsolate,  Lygeia  lay 
Upon  her  couch  ;  and  endlessly  one  wail 


208  Appendix. 

Kept  throbbing,  throbbing  through  her 

soul, — no  more 
To  see  him  whom  she  loved,  no  more, 

no  more  ! 
Not  even  might  she  hanghis  dented  shield 
Upon  the  wall,  and  scan  its  rusting  face. 

And  as  Lygeia  lay  there  desolate, 
Old   Myron   called   her  to  the  western 

porch, 
Whereon  the    moonbeams  fell  resplen- 

dently, 
And  spake  in  mournful  yet  triumphant 

tone  : 
"  Behold,  my  child,  what  I  in  jest  had 

wrought ! " 

There,  motionless,  she  stood,  fixed  was 

her  gaze 
Upon  a  statue,  silver-sheened  and  large, 
Of  purest  Parian  stone, — statue  of  him 
She  loved, — one  arm  against  a  marble 

shaft, 
The  other  stretched  in  front  of  him,  the 

head 


The  Shadoiv  in  Stone.     209 

Crowned  with  a  wreath  of  glinting  olive 
leaves, 

Which,  that  same  night,  Myron  had  cut 
and  twined. 

'T  was  Rhoicos'  self  done  to  the  finger- 
tips : 

And  yet  Apollo,  with  his  sun-bright 
locks 

Rippling  in  air,  shone  not  more  glorious. 

So   did   the    goddess   hear    Lygeia's 

prayer : 
Through    weary,  weary  years  her  soul 

might  hold 
Long  converse  with  his  beauteous  shape; 

and  then, 
When  tears  would  flow,  her  eyes  would 

catch  a  glimpse 
Of  that  fair  wreath  of  fading  olive  leaves  ; 
And  pride  and  peace  would  fill  Lygeia's 

soul. 

E.  W.  E.,  Jr. 


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